To Die in Las Vegas
by Rhi
Summary: The new girl hates to be called a rookie. People notice the rookie, don't they? But lab technician Sadie Turner doesn't want to be noticed - what will she do when a certain CSI takes a little more interest in her than usual? NOC
1. To Live in Las Vegas

**To Die in Las Vegas**

The first thing I noticed about the Las Vegas Crime Lab was that everyone seemed to drive a Chevy Tahoe.

The second thing was the people. There were hundreds of them, thousands even. Buzzing zealously as they flew through the corridors, in and out of rooms like bees in their little honeycomb chambers. The place was a hive of activity.

I was somewhat lost in all the action as soon as I stepped inside the air-conditioned building. People in lab coats breezed by me, knowing exactly what they were doing, something I obviously did not. I staggered, I stumbled; I eventually found my way to the receptionist's desk by pure accident and the forces of gravity and crowd jostling. Everyone seemed to gravitate to this desk. I had to line up.

I had an opportunity, while I was waiting, to wonder if this was a really good idea. I was twenty-six, fresh out of college with a BS in Chemistry and an MS in Molecular Biology, and here I was already signed up to be part of one of the biggest forensics labs in the United States.

Oh, _hell_ yeah.

It hadn't entirely been my choice. I'd received a phone call from the Crime Lab some weeks back, stating that they had a free position for a lab tech and I had been personally selected by the supervisor of the Criminalistics Bureau's Night Shift, Gil Grissom himself.

I'd be a fool if I didn't know who Gil Grissom was. I'm no fool, so of course I knew who he was – a man who had probably solved more cases than Sherlock Holmes, who, let's face it, didn't exactly have modern science on his side; but the point was, Gil Grissom is brilliance personified. And I, me, Sadie Turner, had a chance to work with him!

No way was I going to pass _this_ up.

It was 9 o'clock at night, what I later learned to be a Vegas peak hour for crime. I'd actually arrived an hour early, since officially I didn't start 'til 10, but I'd figured I'd want to be early so I could get 'inaugurated' into the Lab's way of life. I just hoped the ceremony didn't involve wet trout or ox liver of any kind, unless I was going to analyze it.

Eventually I got up to the receptionist who looked at me as if she thought I'd taken a wrong turn on the way to the mental hospital. Maybe I had. "Hi," I said to the rather plump woman, trying to be as amiable as I possibly could in the face of such overworked agitation. I held up the laminated ID I'd been mailed days earlier. "I'm Sadie Turner, the new lab technician. I—"

No further words were necessary. The woman pointed off down the corridor. "Grissom's office!" she snapped, and turned her attention to the next person who demanded her notice. Shrugging, I advanced down the corridor.

The Las Vegas Crime Lab wasn't a laboratory, it was a labyrinth. It wasn't that hard to navigate, really, I suppose I just got lost half-a-dozen times because I'd never been there before. The layout was fairly simple, with the all-important DNA lab in the centre, and the outlying departments (Trace, Fingerprints, Ballistics, Drying Room, etcetera) around it in a sort of wonky circle. Down a corridor, I learned, was the morgue, and down another the holding rooms and the office of Detective Jim Brass, a man I would meet later in my adventures.

Grissom's office was sort of hard to miss. It was a dark room, with many accoutrements that spoke fondly – and maybe a little oddly – of the occupant. There were things in jars, things I didn't even want to identify, lining shelves on the walls; cut-outs of magazines, posters, newspapers, a Big Mouth Billy Bass above the door (the batteries were dead, I assume, since it didn't start singing as soon as I walked underneath it) and in the midst of all the chaos, Grissom's desk and the man himself at it, hunched over a pile of paperwork that did not seem to be getting any smaller.

He did not look up as I entered. I stood and studied him for a moment before making my presence known.

I couldn't tell how tall Grissom was, but he seemed intimidating enough – he emanated this aura of quiet calm and control that was rare and, whenever you saw it in a person, just a little bit scary. He was one of those types who, I thought, probably always knew where he was and what he was doing.

He was older, maybe even old enough to be my father, with sandy brown hair peppered with grey. He had a little beard, too, which didn't really hide the perpetual youthfulness in his face. He wore spectacles over eyes that I suspected saw every little detail even without them.

I reached up and knocked on the doorframe. Gil Grissom looked up and fixed me with an inquiring stare. "Yes?" he said in a quiet voice.

"Er," I said. _Way to go! Already stuttering, Di!_ "Er," I repeated, suddenly feeling very young and stupid and not suited to this job at all despite the fact I hadn't even started yet. "I'm Sadie Turner," I said pathetically, holding up my ID as if it would start talking and do all the explaining for me. To my dismay, it didn't, so I was stuck with speaking to Mr. Grissom. "The new lab technician. The receptionist told me to come here."

"Sit," he said, pointing with his pen to a chair opposite him. I did so, vaguely noticing Grissom was right-handed. I myself am ambidextrous; it always amazed me how a person could only manage by using one hand to write.

"You graduated from the University of Western Nevada six months ago, yes?" he asked after grasping a manila folder on the mountain of paperwork and flipping it open, scanning the contents. I gulped, nodding as he looked back up at me.

"Bachelor of Science in Chemistry," Grissom continued thoughtfully. "Merits in Physiology and Human Anatomy. Impressive."

I smiled. I felt somewhat like a schoolgirl called to the principal's office, fearing I'd done something wrong, but finding out that instead I'd won an award.

"I was surprised you accepted so readily the position here," Grissom continued in his calm voice. His expression barely changed as he spoke, I noticed. "Not many people have the constitution to deal with what we do, every day."

"I've seen a few pretty nasty things in my time, Mr. Grissom," I said. "I think I can handle whatever's thrown at me, be it bodily fluids or bloody bullets."

Grissom smiled. The expression seemed incredibly boyish on his handsome face. He was handsome, too, despite the crow's feet sneaking in on the edges of his eyes and the frown lines on his forehead. "Good, because you'll be dealing with both on a regular basis here." He closed the folder. "One question, though – what made you want to become a scientist?"

"A scientist?" I shrugged. "I wouldn't call myself that. I guess I'm just...an observer of science. It interests me. The way things work. The way people work. The way chemicals work...It all intertwines and I'm somewhere in the middle of all that. I don't see how people can go through life not knowing why the sky is blue, or why it rains, or why we sweat when it gets hot. I know I can't." Grissom was watching my face carefully through all this, and I sensed I was rambling on, so I shut up feeling rather sheepish about it. To my surprise, though, Grissom smiled.

"'The great thing in life is to be simple and the perfectly simple thing is to look through keyholes'," he quoted softly.

"George Bernard Shaw?" I hazarded. Grissom's smile widened.

"I can tell I'm going to like you. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour." He stood up, seeming rather relieved to be abandoning the conundrum of paperwork on his desk, and led me out of the office.

The next ten minutes I spent almost sprinting to keep up with Grissom, who moved surprisingly fast. He showed me the DNA lab, where I would work some of the time, the Trace lab, the Ballistics lab, Questioned Documents, the Drying Room, the Evidence Rooms, the Morgue (where I met Dr. Al Robbins, the Night Shift Coroner), and too many other places to count. At the end, he stopped by a door labeled Break Room – as if I couldn't tell by the various personnel lounging around inside on couches or drinking coffee.

"I'll introduce you to the people you'll spend most of your time with while here," Grissom said, pushing open the door. I followed him inside.

There were three people currently occupying the Break Room. Two were on couches, one was standing up and leaning against the kitchen counter that ran the length of the wall. The two people seated were women – one of them blonde, with a commanding matronly air around her; the other brown-haired, a no-nonsense look in her brown eyes. If there was one thing I was good at besides science, it was reading people, though sometimes I did get people drastically wrong and the third person in the room was going to be a testament to that.

He was...well, a guy. He was tall, taller than Grissom at least, but not too tall. He was built like a linebacker and had a jaw you could use as a can opener. He had dark hair and darker eyes, and he seemed entirely absorbed with the TV going over in the corner.

"Catherine, Sara, Nick," said Grissom, "Meet our newest lab technician. Sadie Turner, this is Catherine Willows –" the blonde woman smiled and nodded at me, "Sara Sidle," the brunette gave me a gap-toothed grin that was, in her own way, actually quite cute, "and Nick Stokes." The man glanced up upon hearing his name, apparently seeing us for the first time. "Hey," he mumbled, sipping his coffee.

"I hope you'll all get a chance to work together. Where's Warrick?" Grissom inquired, raising his eyebrows and looking over his spectacles at the group.

"Right here, Gris," said a tall man with a sizeable afro, walking in the door. He had a goatee and big green eyes that went immediately to me, the only out-of-place person in the room. "Just went to check on those prints from the Garvey case, no match in AFIS," he said, still looking at me.

"Warrick, meet Sadie Turner. She's our new lab rat." Grissom said, without any preamble.

"New blood, huh?" Warrick said, stepping forward to shake my hand. His hand was warm, and he smiled at me. "Welcome to the Crime Lab. We sure do need more pairs of hands around here."

"Warrick's been feeling a little overworked lately," said Sara Sidle from the couch, diverting her attention from the TV. Warrick frowned at her.

"I have not," he griped. "We just need more good techs, you know. Can't do the analysing ourselves all the time, can we?"

"Sure," Sara said, grinning again. Grissom shook his head.

"Warrick, let me know how the Garvey case goes, I want to hear the second you've got anything," he said. Warrick nodded. "Nick, Catherine, Sara – don't get too comfortable, I'm sure something will pop up for you guys soon. Sadie, come with me – we'll get you a lab coat and set up with Sanders. I hear he's backlogged." And with that, Grissom left the room.

I caught Nick Stokes staring curiously at me as I left, but my mind was on other things. Mainly, how the hell was I going to survive here?


	2. Fear and Loathing

**To Die in Las Vegas**

The first week at the Criminalistics Bureau I spent learning all over again how to operate microscopes, computers, centrifuges, and other lab equipment I'd learnt how to use in my first month of college. I was guided by the ever-humorous hand of Greg Sanders, whom I came to like quite a bit. He was a funny guy – and funny people were hard to come by in this environment. It took a lot of effort to retain a sense of humour in this job.

"Now I'm sure you don't know how to use a microscope," he joked, the first time I met him. "You do? Oh no," he'd said upon finding out I could, "Now I've got nothing to teach you!" I enjoyed working with Greg.

I actually didn't see much of the CSIs at first. I spent most of my time trying to memorize where everything was. Greg helped me a lot, he even went so far as to draw me a rough (and extremely inaccurate) map of the Lab, but it's the thought that counts, right?

On Monday night at 10 o'clock sharp I walked through the front doors of the Crime Lab. Not literally through them, of course; they slid aside as the automatic sensors detected my approach. I glared at the receptionist a bit as I breezed past, already wearing my blue lab coat, ID pinned to the breast pocket. I felt more confident now, even though it had only been a week or so since I'd officially become An Employee.

I made my way to DNA to find out if Greg had anything for me to do. I hadn't actually analysed much in the way of evidence so far – it was all practice, practice, practice, prove you can actually operate the equipment without breaking it, etcetera. I wanted something to do.

I arrived at the DNA lab to find it empty. No Greg Sanders anywhere in sight. I even checked underneath the desk, but he wasn't there. Shrugging to myself, I sat down in the wheelie chair that Greg so coveted, and perused the various tabletops for anything to look at underneath a microscope, or perhaps a fingerprint or two to scan into the computer.

Instead I found...nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. All the 'organic' evidence had been sealed and locked in the refrigeration unit in the corner, or packed away in plastic and paper bags I didn't dare to open. Sighing, I leaned back, waiting for Greg or, hell, even Grissom to turn up.

After about five minutes I sighed and shut my eyes. Just for a second. Apparently, though, my body hadn't yet adjusted to working nights and sleeping days. Before I knew it I was asleep and having a strange dream about test tubes and...I think bunnies came into it, somewhere. I woke to the feeling of someone tapping me on the shoulder.

"Oh, f-" I said, coming to and looking up into the big grinning face of CSI Nick Stokes. "-Jeez, Mr. Stokes, you startled me," I finished lamely, straightening up and glancing surreptitiously at my watch. I'd only been snoozing for about ten minutes, it seemed.

"Falling asleep on the job and it's only your second week!" said Nick, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. I noticed that Greg was still conspicuously absent, and that Nick had a plastic baggie in his hand. Good – maybe I'd finally get to examine something other than my own hair follicles!

"By the way," Nick continued, "Call me Nick. 'Mr. Stokes' makes me feel like I'm old."

"Well, how old are you?" I asked sneakily, grinning at him. Nick frowned.

"That's a little personal, isn't it, rookie?" He didn't sound as if he was joking. I rolled my eyes. Nick Stokes struck me as the quintessential high-school 'jock' type. How he'd become a CSI I didn't know. I'd reserve judgement of him, though...for now.

"What do you need?" I asked, injecting as much professionalism into my voice as I could manage. Frowning, Nick looked around the lab.

"Well, where's Greg?" He asked me. I just _knew_ what he was thinking. 'Oh, we can't let the rookie do any work, can we? She'd probably just screw it up.'

"Your guess is as good as mine," I said, shrugging. Nick made a face, looking down at the little plastic baggie he was holding, probably wondering if he could trust me with its contents or not.

"All right," he said, extending it towards me. "I really can't wait, so I guess..."

I took the baggie from him before he could continue, and opened it, shaking its contents out into my gloved palm. "Whoa," I said in surprise. "Looks like you got a doggie here."

The joke was apparently lost on Nick, who stared at me as if I'd sprouted a second head. I resisted the urge to pat my shoulder to check.

"A canine?" I offered. "Tooth. Where'd you find it?" I wheeled over to the microscope, placing the tooth on a slide and moving it underneath the lens. I peered through the eyepiece, squinting.

Nick shrugged, apparently not at liberty to give out that information.

"Looks like there's some gum tissue adhered to the tooth," I murmured. "Someone must have taken a good knock to the face to dislodge it." I leaned back, looking over at Nick. "It should be no problem to get a DNA profile from this."

"Good," said Nick, looking pleased. I felt a little chagrined. He probably hadn't thought I could do this much! I suppose I could expect this reaction from all the CSIs, after all, I was _new_.

How I would learn to detest that word!

"Once I'm done," I said, readying test tubes and bottles of liquids necessary to extract DNA, "I assume you'll want me to scan it into CODIS?"

"You do what you think you should do," said Nick condescendingly. "It's my job to tell you if you get anything wrong."

I frowned. "Last time I checked," I said sweetly as I grabbed a pair of tweezers, picking up the tooth and dropping it into a test tube, "_Your_ job is to collect evidence. Mine is to analyse it so you can interpret it properly."

Nick grinned. His teeth were too white. I wanted to smack him. "Sure," he said dismissively. "Page me when you've got the results." He turned on his heel and left.

"But," I said to thin air, "I don't have your pager number."

I sat there for a moment, seething, before getting back to work.

Greg arrived half an hour later as I was waiting for the printout. He strolled into the DNA lab, yawning and stretching his arms, his hair as messy as ever. This time, though, I didn't think the look was intentional.

He looked quite surprised to see me. "Where have you been?" I asked him, frowning.

"I slept in," he offered sheepishly. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," I said slowly, "Remember?"

"Yeah, but last time I checked, you weren't –" He jumped as the printer spat out paper. "What have you been doing?" he said, grabbing the paper before I could get to it. "Scanning DNA?"

"From a tooth Stokes brought in," I said. "He said it couldn't wait."

"I'll put it in CODIS," said Greg. "Good work, rook-"

"DON'T call me that," I said. "Please."

Greg looked at me, wide-eyed. "Okay then. Newbie." He grinned and moved towards the computer.

I groaned and put my head in my hands. I had a feeling this wasn't the last time someone was going to call me a variation of that accursed word!


	3. Showdown

** To Die in Las Vegas**

Time seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly that night. I was stuck doing paperwork Greg Sanders had fallen behind on, something I wasn't too happy about. I wrote with my left hand in a messy chicken-scratch, planning to blame Greg for the mess later.

"I thought you were right-handed," he said to me as an aside, looking up from some specimen or another he was examining down a microscope.

"I am," I said. "I can write with both hands."

"Woah," said Greg, impressed. "What are you, like, a robot?"

"I can stand on my head and whistle Dixie, too," I continued, ignoring his comment. "Want me to?"

"Probably not appropriate for the workplace, Ms. Turner," grinned Greg sarcastically. He'd once told me about an incident he'd been involved in with a showgirl's headdress. _He_ could talk about professionalism!

"Yeah, right."

Greg, having taken up his spot in a wheelie chair, sidled over to the computer as it started to beep urgently. He grinned, tapping a key, a moment later grabbing a document the printer spat out.

"We got a hit," he said, rolling over to me and dropping the piece of paper onto the desk in front of me.

"On what?" I yawned, sleepily. My mind was awake but my body wanted to be in bed. Sighing, I picked up the piece of paper and scanned it over. "Candice Johnson. Arrested for DUI in '97. Missing for eight months." I grinned. "God, don't you love compulsory on-arrest DNA and fingerprinting?"

"It's saved my ass many times," said Greg loftily. "Well, not exactly _my_ ass. More like thrown some other asses in jail, where they belong."

"And I'm sure someone _there_ will like those asses," I said. "Um...do you know Nick Stokes' pager number? He told me to page him if I got anything." It had been little over an hour since Stokes had left DNA. It was really quite good of CODIS to kick out a match so fast; according to Greg sometimes searching the database took forever.

"Oh, don't bother paging him," said Nick. "He should be on his break right now. In the Break Room."

"Where else?" I muttered sarcastically. "I'll be back."

"I'll hold down the fort while you're gone, partner," said Greg, saluting as I got up rather stiffly and moved to the door. Chuckling, I returned the salute and emerged into the corridor, rap sheet clutched between my gloved fingers.

I felt less out-of-place as I made my way towards the Break Room. People didn't look at me as if I didn't belong – I was just another person in a lab coat in a sea of, well, people in lab coats. I felt like 'baa'ing sarcastically but I refrained from doing so, concentrating on not getting hopelessly lost – again.

Thankfully, the break room was almost directly across from the DNA lab, so it only took me thirty seconds or so to reach it. Through the glass-panelled walls, I could see none other than Nick Stokes himself sitting on the couch, drinking coffee. I assumed it was coffee, anyway.

He looked up as I entered, grinning his shit-eating grin. I was growing to dislike that grin. "Yo," he greeted me quite informally, "What's up, rookie?"

I closed my eyes in exasperation for a moment before replying. "CODIS kicked out a hit," I said from between clenched teeth. "You have yourself a victim. Or a suspect – I don't know since you, kindly, did not provide me any information about the sample."

Nick laughed, setting aside his mug. He got up and walked to me, taking the paper from my hands and looking down at it. "Good work," he said, and I tried to smile, but it ended up looking more like a grimace. Nick glanced up at me. "Hey," he said, his cockiness suddenly vanishing. "Us CSIs are supposed to give the techs a hard time, you know? Especially new ones. It's nothing personal."

"I never noticed you giving me a hard time," I said sweetly, smiling coldly at him.

"Well, let me make it up to you," he grinned. "How about I take you out for coffee?"

I jerked my head towards the percolator on the bench. "There's a coffee-maker right here. Why go out?"

"Is that a yes?" I had a shrewd suspicion Nick Stokes was flirting with me, but I was having none of it. Even in college, during which I had a job on the side as a video store clerk (pretty far from a forensic scientist), I had a strict Do-Not-Date-Co-workers policy. In my experience, those never ended well.

"No."

"Why not?" Nick frowned. "I could tell you all about the tricks of the trade. I know a few things about Greg, too, that you'd be able to blackmail him with if he ever does anything annoying." He smirked.

"Like the showgirl headdress incident?" I smiled. "What's this, Stokes, kindness to rookies?" I inquired, clasping my hands behind my back, something I'd done since high school. It seemed to annoy people. Body language – a lovely thing, when used properly.

"I'm not flirting with you, if that's what you were hoping – I mean, wondering," grinned Nick. I felt like smacking him. Again.

"I wasn't. Excuse me, Mr. Stokes," I said, "But I have to get back to work." I breezed past him, leaving the Break Room and walking briskly down the corridor.

Greg Sanders noticed my agitation when I entered the DNA lab. "What's wrong with you?" he asked, looking away from the computer. It looked as if he had been playing Ping-Pong, but had minimized it quickly as I approached.

"Nick Stokes, that's what," I said, taking my seat and resuming paperwork angrily. "I hate that guy."

"Nick? Aw, he's harmless," said Greg, exiting Ping-Pong discreetly and pretending he was running a print through AFIS. "He likes you, you know. I spoke to him when I came in. Said he thought you were 'cute'."

"Liar," I snorted, turning a page. _Evidence Number: 4601xC._

"I'm not, I swear," said Greg. "And you _are_ cute."

_Bite me_. I realized I'd written it instead of saying it aloud. Sighing, I erased the mistake and continued to write; glad I was doing so in pencil.

Cute, huh? Despite my dismissive attitude towards Nick Stokes 'alleged' words, I felt a little swelling in my ego region. Cute. I'd never been called 'cute' before. Except in high school, and that seemed like centuries ago. Plus it had been my Biology teacher who'd called me 'cute' when I brought in my great-uncle's skull. (My uncle had been a weird type. When he died, he'd left his skull to my family in his will. We ended up keeping it on the mantelpiece. My family wasn't too surprised when I got into forensics.)

I gloated to myself for a few moments before snapping out of it to make sure I hadn't started to draw little hearts on the paper with "I LUV PROFESSOR M." in the middles. I hadn't. Good.

"Sadie," said a quiet voice from over my shoulder, one I recognized instantly. I spun around to look up into the bespectacled face of Gil Grissom. "Are you busy?"

"No," I said, glancing over at Greg who had a pleading look on his face. "I was just...er..."

"Doing Greg's paperwork," Grissom finished, glancing over at Greg, who cringed. "Greg, I've told you about getting the new staff to do your forms," he said sternly, and I was secretly grateful he did not refer to me as a 'rookie'. "Next time I catch you slacking off, I'll-"

Greg held up his gloved hands in defeat. "Okay, boss, I know," he sighed. "You'll make me work with Disposal for six months. I got it. But there's really nothing for Mizz Turner to do here!" He drawled my name in a faux-Bronx accent, and I smiled a little.

I nodded agreement as Grissom looked at me, wiping away the smile, not wanting to get Greg into any more trouble – even though I already had the feeling he got chewed out by Grissom every other week.

"Good, because we need her over in QD," said Grissom, leaving the room and beckoning for me to follow. I did, glancing back at Greg with some trepidation. The lab tech shrugged at me as if to say, "Hey, don't look at me, I dunno what Grissom's up to." Problem was, neither did I.

"Questioned Documents?" I asked Grissom as he led me through the lab.

"Yes," he replied over his shoulder. "We've had an influx of letters threatening one of our CSIs. Brass has located the suspect's home, and among his things we found a pad of paper. We think it's the paper he's been using to write the letters. I need you to lift the latent writing off the pad."

"Chemistry is my forte, Mr. Grissom," I said worriedly. "I'm a bit shaky in the other areas."

"Well, now's the time to get in some practice, isn't it?" Grissom smiled at me, stopping outside a dimly lit room. Beyond the glass-panelled door, I could see a man examining a blown up image of some writing stuck to a corkboard.

"Good luck," Grissom said, leaving me standing there.

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and went inside.


	4. Rainy Nights

**To Die in Las Vegas**

You can tell a lot about a man from his underwear.

And God, how I wish it wasn't true. Warrick Brown, in his infinite kindness, had generously donated a pair of soiled man's Y-fronts to DNA. Greg handed the hermetically sealed plastic bag to me with a viscous smile. "All yours, rookie," he said smugly. I groaned.

"Gee whiz, Greg. I don't know what I'd do around here without you to give me dirty underwear all day."

"Just be glad it's not mine," Greg winked and sailed off.

I sighed as I gingerly took the underwear out of the bag, trying not to touch it too much. Oh well, at least this was my area of expertise...

My experience in Questioned Documents had been, in a word, a disaster. I'd almost entirely ruined the paper when I'd forgotten to add a certain chemical solution to the thin layer of plastic I'd used to cover it, thus also wasting several grams of magnetic powder in the process. I'd been so confused as to why the powder hadn't adhered until the resident genius explained it to me. At the end of my shift I'd left, red-faced, vowing never to work in QD again as long as I lived.

I went home and studied up on the document identifying process.

Nearly a week later, I was plonked back in DNA. Sanders was pleased to see me, as a new influx of cases had him swamped. He kept all the glory to himself, though, giving me the less glamorous projects such as the pair of underpants I was stuck swabbing at the present moment.

"Semen stain," I muttered. "Fecal stain...urine stain...What looks like, uh, a spaghetti sauce stain...This guy wasn't very hygienic," I said over my shoulder to Greg, who laughed.

"Hey, more DNA for us, right?" he said cheerfully. How did he remain so happy-go-lucky in this place? I had no idea. I'd only been here a couple weeks and already I was starting to feel depressed. Maybe it was the sparse fluorescent lighting that was getting to me. I didn't know.

The rest of the evening passed slowly. At 4am I clocked out feeling miserable, as all the Y-fronts DNA had belonged to the owner, a suspect in a recent murder. I wondered why his victims couldn't tell he was coming just by the smell.

Back in civilian clothing, I left the Crime Lab, emerging into a chilly Las Vegas night. It was to be expected, it was January after all. There had been some snow weeks back, but it had all melted, and left behind a permeating, damp coldness that ate away at your very bones. I exhaled, watching my breath form white mist in the air. Sighing, I advanced into the night, walking between rows of Chevy Tahoes to reach my car.

It was an old silver Ford Taurus. It wasn't the most up-to-date in the way of cars, but it got me from A to B and mostly to C as well, so I didn't mind. My numb hands fumbled with the keys as I fought to get the driver's side door open. _Damn that $500 off for no central locking_, I thought to myself before sliding into the driver's seat of the car.

I shut the door, buckled my seatbelt and stuck the key in the ignition, turning it. I couldn't wait to turn on the heater.

The car made a pathetic 'pft-pft' sound. I frowned, turning the key again. The car sounded like a sheep trying to spit.

I tried five more times before giving up in exasperation. I gathered all my valuables from the car – there weren't that many – and stuffed them into the oversized vintage Marilyn Monroe handbag I carried, getting out of the car.

As I locked it, I decided it would be a good idea to kick one of the tires. All that got me was a bruised toe. Grumbling, I set out from the Crime Lab's parking lot.

I would have taken a cab, except for the fact my cellphone was dead and I only had about five bucks in quarters. I had yet to receive my first paycheck. So I was stuck hoofing it.

Five minutes down the street and it began to rain. No thunder, no lightning, no warning whatsoever – it just began to pour down with rain. I stopped in my tracks, feeling the heavy droplets soak my hair and clothing.

"Why do you hate me?" I said, turning my face to the sky and getting rain in my eyes for my trouble. Grumbling to myself, I plodded onwards, trying not to think what the rain was doing to my dry-clean-only blouse.

Another ten minutes and I was soaked through. I just wanted to go home, collapse on my bed and sleep for a week. _I should have taken that job as a receptionist,_ I thought. _I'd make a good receptionist. Except for the fact my handwriting is about as legible as a doctor's and I never remember appointments. Damn!_

Cars swept by me on the road, dousing me with cast-off water and mud from the tires. Now I had to add mud to the dry-cleaning dilemma. "Is my life a sitcom?" I asked no one in particular, my steps becoming slower and slower. I felt so sorry for myself at that moment.

That is, until a car pulled up by the side of the road. I quickened my step, fearing a crazed serial killer, thinking that my _own_ DNA would be the next gracing the microscope of Greg Sanders.

"Hey! Need a ride?" said a familiar voice as the driver of the car rolled his window down. I stopped and turned. It was none other than Nick Stokes in his Chevy Tahoe, grinning at me.

How I wanted to alternately strangle him and hug him at that moment. "Are you kidding?" I said. "I'm having the time of my life here, trudging through the rain and mud and freezing my ass off. It's a ball."

"Okay then," said Nick, shrugging and beginning to roll his window up. I sprinted forward, splashing through the roadside mud.

"Wait!" _Damn you, Stokes!_

"I knew you'd come around," said Nick, stopping. "Hop in."

I paused. "I'll get your seats all dirty."

"The seats aren't mine," grinned Nick, "they're the department's. Come on, get in, you look like you're about to die of hypothermia."

Gratefully I crossed to the passenger's side and opened the door, sliding my wet, cold body into the seat. I shut the door, feeling a blast of warm air on my face from the AC. I leaned into it thankfully, not even caring that I was dripping all over the Criminalistics Bureau's seats.

"You look awful," said Nick Stokes. I looked over at him, water dripping down my face from my soaked hair.

He looked dry. I hated him for it. "Thanks," I grunted, fastening my seat belt.

"You're welcome. Where to?"

"Palora Avenue," I said. "It's near the Las Vegas Country Club. You know it?"

"Sure, been to the country club a couple times," said Nick, pulling the Tahoe into the street. "That's pretty far away, though. You were gonna walk?"

"I didn't have much of a choice," I sighed. "I'm all out of luck today, it seems."

"Guess not," Nick said, and smiled at me. For once I wasn't tempted to smack him one; he seemed to be being genuinely nice, letting me drip all over the seats and all.

As we pulled onto the I-15, Nick twisted around in his seat and fished in the back. I gasped, leaning over and grabbing at the wheel, terrified he was going to lose control and crash. He didn't. He turned back to me, holding up a tatty old towel.

"You almost got us both killed!" I said, my hair dripping on his leg.

"Don't worry, rookie," said Nick. "I'm from Texas. I'm a good driver." I became aware of how close I was to him, and how tightly the seatbelt was digging into my ribs. I leaned back, taking the towel Nick offered. I wiped the water from my face and dried my hair a bit. Nick glanced over at me and laughed.

"What is it?" I said irritably as he turned off on North Eastern Ave.

"You look cute with your hair all messed up like that."

I turned bright red, glad he couldn't see my face in the darkness pierced only by the headlights of other cars. "Yeah, well, you'd look cute with a fork sticking out of your eye, but you don't see me telling you that, do you?"

Nick just laughed. I glowered, waiting for the embarrassment to subside. Nick drove in silence, glancing over at me occasionally as I draped the towel over my lap, shivering.

"You cold?" he asked, leaning forward and turning up the AC.

"I'm all right," I said, wrapping my arms around me with a slight squelching sound. Nick shook his head.

"You know," he said conversationally, "It's been a while since we had a new lab tech in. Usually they come and go. Greg says you're here to stay."

"I am," I said staunchly. "I like the job...even though these first couple of weeks haven't been the best. Greg's made it easier for me, though."

"Greg," said Nick, an odd look passing over his face. "Yeah, Greg's a funny guy."

"Don't you like him?" I asked innocently.

"Of course I do," scoffed Nick, turning a corner.

"Didn't sound like it, just then."

"You'd make a good CSI, rookie," said Nick, sounding almost impressed.

"I thought of it," I said truthfully. "I don't think I could handle the pressure. It's hard enough organizing the paperwork as a lab tech....Third house on the right." We'd turned onto my street.

Nick chuckled as he pulled into my driveway. It was still raining outside, and I was reluctant to get out of the nice warm car. I sat there, staring gloomily at my dark house, dreading the dash to the front door. _Wouldn't it just suck if I forgot my keys?_ I checked my handbag to make sure – yes, my luck was definitely looking up, my keys were still there.

"This is it, right?" asked Nick, looking over at me.

"Sure is. Home sweet home," I said, glancing over at the CSI. He was looking at me with a strange expression I couldn't place. _So much for being able to read people_. "Thanks for the ride," I said. "And the towel." I held out the sopping towel and he laughed.

"Keep it."

"A souvenir!" I said, my sense of humour somehow managing to assert itself through the layers of wet clothing. "Lovely. Thanks." I glanced out the window at the pouring rain and sighed. "Here goes."

I felt a warm hand on my arm. "Wait." It was Nick's. He twisted around in his seat again, withdrawing something from the back seat. "Stay there." He hopped out of the car, and a moment later I saw the 'something' was an umbrella. He opened it and crossed to the passenger's side, opening the door for me. "Come on."

I undid my seatbelt and sidled out of the car, keeping close to Nick underneath the shelter of the umbrella.

We dashed to the front door, me having to grab on to Nick's sleeve so he wouldn't leave me behind. The guy should have been a damn marathon runner!

We stopped once we'd reached the little porch. Nick lowered the umbrella, shaking off water, and looked at me.

"What are you looking at," I muttered, fishing my keys out of my soggy handbag. "Never seen a woman caught out in the rain before?"

Nick just laughed. I got the feeling he wanted to say something and looked at him curiously, but he just raised his eyebrows at me.

"Hey," I said. "You're not so bad, Nick."

"Thanks," he said. "You aren't so bad yourself, Sadie."

"Not gonna call me 'rookie' any more?" I jingled my keys and smirked at him.

"We'll see," he said, flashing a grin, and raising his umbrella again. "See you tomorrow."

"For sure."

I watched Nick dash off into the rain like a champion sprinter, get into his car and drive off.

I smiled to myself as I turned to unlock my door. Maybe Nick Stokes really _wasn't_ so bad after all...


	5. Business As Usual

** To Die in Las Vegas**

"I washed it for you."

"Huh?"

Nick Stokes was sitting on the bench in the locker room, changing his boots. He'd been out in the rain, it seemed, for his shoes came off with a wet sucking sound. The rain hadn't let up for two days. I was getting sick of it. Vegas was supposed to be the home of hot days and hotter nights, was it not? What was with all this damn rain? I'd lived here seven years and I'd never seen rain quite like this. It acted as if it had a personal grudge against the ground, pummelling it and anything that got in the way.

Thankfully, my car had been towed off and fixed the previous day, so I didn't need to take a cab to work. My paycheck had cleared but most of it had been instantly blown on groceries and bills. So much for living the high life.

Water was dripping off Nick's hair. I smirked. He definitely looked like he needed a towel. I took a few steps forward and held it out to him.

"Oh." He smiled, but he seemed to be too tired to give a grin. He took the towel and pressed it to his face a moment. "Nice detergent."

I ignored him and sat next to him on the bench. "Outdoor crime scene?"

"Yeah," Nick said, towelling off his hair. It stuck up in a way quite reminiscent of Greg Sanders'. "What is it?" he asked, noticing my lopsided look and smile.

"You're cute with your hair all messed up like that," I teased, mimicking his Texan drawl.

"Honey, that was the sorriest excuse for a Texan accent I have ever heard," laughed Nick.

I wondered why I'd come here. Sure, to return the towel, but he'd said to keep it. I guess...maybe Nick Stokes was growing on me. Maybe I wanted to find out if he really was a Texan jock or the nice guy I'd seen a glimpse of the other night. I'd asked the cluey Greg where Nick was likely to be at, and he'd given me a funny look and said, "He and Warrick have just returned from a CS. He's probably in the locker room." And so, off I went.

"I guess you don't hate me that much after all," said Nick unexpectedly, jerking me out of my reverie. I stared at him, wide-eyed. He smiled mirthlessly. "Greg told me what you said," he continued. "He's the biggest gossip in the whole lab. I'd be careful what you tell him from now on."

"I don't hate you," I sputtered as Nick stood up and strode to his locker. "I was...I was just having a bad day."

Nick shrugged and said nothing. He opened his locker and withdrew a clean, rather disgusting paisley green shirt. I gaped wordlessly as he, apparently not noticing I was still there, took off his soaking shirt.

_Oh my goodness_, I thought rather faintly, wondering if I should leave. I didn't. Instead I stared at Nick's naked chest as if I had never seen one before. He started to put on the shirt and I felt compelled to speak. I'd be betraying every hormone in my body if I didn't, after all.

"That shirt is really ugly," I said, after clearing my throat a couple of times. Nick stopped putting it on and looked at it.

"My sister bought it for me."_ Oops!_ I thought. "It is pretty gross, though." He smiled slightly over at me and then rooted around in his locker looking for another shirt, giving me a few more moments to ogle him.

I don't actually remember, before then, thinking Nick was very attractive. Truthfully, I don't think I ever noticed. I was sure as hell noticing _now_.

"How's this one?" Nick held up a shirt that was, if possible, even uglier than the last one. I nodded wordlessly, temporarily incapable of speech. Nick seemed to notice this and stared at me a moment before grinning that famous damn grin of his. Somehow I managed to regain enough control over my facial muscles to raise an eyebrow at him and closed my mouth.

He pulled on the shirt, keeping it unbuttoned, and draped the towel around his neck. I cleared my throat again as he reached in his locker and withdrew a pair of sneakers, walking back towards me and sitting on the bench.

"Damn. I forgot spare socks," he said as he pulled on the sneakers. "I hate wearing shoes without socks."

"Er," I said. I sounded like a frog. "You...you should try wearing heels for seven hours a day."

"Can't say I've done that before," said Nick, smiling. "How's your car?" He began to button up his shirt. Part of me was disappointed, another relieved. I coughed and brushed some hair back from my face.

"Towed and fixed," I said. "Hopefully it won't give me any more trouble."

"Aw, I don't know," Nick said, his dark eyes twinkling as he looked at me. "I kinda liked you soaking wet like that."

I felt heat rising in my face. "Do you make it a habit of flirting with the new lab techs, Stokes?"

Nick grinned then, looking away from me as he laced up his sneakers. He struck me more of a boot-man, really. _I wonder how big his feet are?_ "Nah," he said. "I guess I'm just giving you a hard time since you're the newbie."

"Well, stop it," I said. "Why is it you're nice everywhere else but act like a typical chauvinistic male Texan here?"

"I don't!" exclaimed Nick. "Do I?" he looked at me, concerned. "Come on, I'm not that bad."

"I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure." I stood up. "I don't mean to create a scene," I continued, "But...you're just not my type, and, well, I wish you wouldn't flirt with me."

"Who's flirting with you?" An all-too-familiar quiet voice piped up from right behind me. I whirled around, red-faced, to look at Gil Grissom. The guy was like a ghost! He was really good at sneaking up on people, anyway.

"Er," I said. "No one. I was just returning something to Mr. Stokes." I backed out of the room, grinning madly. But because I was an insufferable snooper, I paused just beyond the doorframe and listened.

"What was that about?" murmured Gil Grissom's voice, and I could just imagine the frown on the Night Shift Supervisor's face.

"Nothin', Gris," said Nick. "Turner-" _Oh, last name basis, are we Stokes?_ "-just returned a towel to me. I gave her a ride home the other night when her car broke down and she borrowed it. The towel, I mean."

"I see. Anything else you want to tell me?"

"Naw." Nick's voice sounded nonchalant. "Only that I'm never working an outdoor scene in the rain again!"

I smiled a little. _Yeah, Nick...you are all right._ I turned away from the door and found myself looking at a rather colourful blouse attached to the body of Catherine Willows.

"Oh, hi," I said sheepishly, looking at the woman, who quirked a slender brow at me.

"Sadie, right?" Catherine said. I nodded and gulped. Boy, was I busted. "Great!" I blinked at the smile that lit up Catherine's face. "I could really do with a lab monkey right now. Come with me." She turned on her heel and strode off. Shrugging and deciding not to push my luck, I followed.

She led me to the Layout Room, a place I had passed in my whirlwind tour with Grissom on my first day. I hadn't actually been inside, though. I entered it feeling a little nervous, but it was just another room. There was a large rectangular table in the center with a bright light panel, much like an X-ray screen, presumably to illuminate whatever piece of evidence placed on the surface. There were metal tables with lab equipment on, mostly microscopes, computers and other paraphernalia. Some sheets of paper were spread out on the backlit table. Catherine walked to stand in front of it and I hovered over her shoulder.

"I know you're a DNA girl," she said, "Grissom told me about your experience in QD." I winced. "Don't worry, everyone has their own specialty and...lack of specialty," Catherine continued, smiling reassuringly at me. I relaxed a little, glad that she didn't seem to be chewing me out. Yet. "Which is why I need you now."

She pointed to one of the pieces of paper. I recognized the handwriting – it was the same as that of the paper I'd 'helped' identify in QD. It read:

I'm coming for you, Nick 

I gasped. "The letters are for _Nick_?" I exclaimed in horror. Catherine looked at me.

"Yeah. Poor guy. He's had a rough time working here, I'll tell ya. We originally thought they were from a suspect Nick had helped throw in prison, but the envelope was hand-delivered, and I doubt any convict's gonna walk all the way to the Bureau mailbox and drop it in. We got a couple of partial fingerprints off one envelope, but nothing usable. However..." she pointed to a small smudge on the piece of paper. "We have an unidentified organic substance here. I was thinking you might be able to identify it."

"Sure, I'll just need to swab it-" I said, but Catherine smiled and reached over, picking up a round plastic container. Within was one of the Q-tips I'd seen so many of during my few weeks here. Johnson's & Johnson's probably made a fortune off all the buds they sold to the Lab.

"Great," I said, taking the swab. "I'll get right on it."

"You do that." I turned to go, but Catherine grabbed my arm. "Hey, Sadie – can I call you Sadie?" I nodded. "I think I speak for everyone here when I say we're pretty worried about Nick. He's like a little brother to a lot of us. I'm depending on you here. That swab could be what makes – or breaks – this case. We need to find out who's sending these letters."

I nodded again, shakily, feeling as if someone had dumped every single case in the Lab onto my shoulders. "Don't worry. I won't screw it up," I assured Catherine, who looked at me a moment before letting me go.

"Page me with the results, okay?" And she picked up a pen and wrote her pager number on a spare piece of paper.

"Okay."

I left the Layout Room in a cloud of worry, not just for my ass but for Nick Stokes' as well.

Then again, why should I be worried? Nick was a big boy. He could take care of himself. And it was none of my business.

I looked at the swab in my hand. Maybe not....


	6. More Fear, Less Loathing

**To Die in Las Vegas**

It occurred to me, much later, how much of my social life I'd lost since becoming an employee of the Las Vegas Criminalistics Bureau. My life seemed to be full of DNA samples, unknown substances in jars, microscopes, fingerprints and blood. My friends had all dropped back into the woodwork – did I even have friends outside of work any more? – and I had no hobbies that I could think of. My life consisted of a) work, and b) sleep.

I didn't mind it that much.

I was in Trace, sitting by the mass spectrometer, waiting for the results on Catherine's swab. I slouched idly, frowning to myself, occasionally glancing at the machine or at my watch. I'd put in all my overtime as long as it meant being present when the results came in.

I sighed to myself and tapped my fingers on the tabletop. Though a lot of equipment used for Trace was in the DNA lab (right across the hall), the spectrometer and the gas chromatograph were here, in this tiny crowded metal box. The primary Trace lab was smaller than the DNA lab, a fact I was rather annoyed about. I preferred working in DNA, even though it was chiefly Greg Sanders' territory.

I yawned softly and looked up at the ceiling, resisting the urge to close my eyes. Last time I'd done that I'd woken up looking into the grinning face of Nick Stokes.

On second thoughts...I shut my eyes. Just then, the spectrometer let out a beep and the printer connected to it spat out a piece of paper.

I sighed, opened my eyes and leaned over, grabbing the paper. A gradual frown suffused my face as I went over the results. "Interesting," I murmured to myself, and went to page Catherine Willows.

The woman turned up a few minutes later, looking out of breath. She slowed to a stop in front of me, her face expectant. "What's up?"

"Got the results from that swab," I said, standing and handing her the paper. "Does this chemical composition look familiar to you?"

Catherine's brow creased as she read. "Ethyl acetate, alcohol, H2O, tocopheryl acetate, benzophenone...Nail varnish remover?"

"Bingo," I said, reminding myself somewhat of Greg. "Looks like your letterman might be a woman." I cringed slightly at the lameness of the pun, but Catherine didn't seem to notice. "I mean, how many men go around spilling nail polish remover? Then again, the stuff could have belonged to a girlfriend or wife, but the handwriting profiler guy said the writer was more likely to be single."

"You'd make a good CSI, you know that?" Catherine said, grinning slightly at me. I shrugged.

"People keep telling me that," I said. "I don't think I would, really."

"Well, good work, regardless," she replied. "Can you find out the exact brand that manufactures the polish remover?"

I crossed my arms, cradling my elbows in my hands. "I guess I could," I said. "Spectrograph said there were minute traces of Vitamin E. It's supposed to strengthen the nail. I guess I could narrow the field down a bit to a select few companies that make the stuff with E in it."

"Do it," Catherine said, handing me back the paper. "Let me know. I've gotta run." And with that, Catherine about-faced and left.

I stood looking down at the paper for a few moments before sighing and going to the computer to run a few searches.

Trace had no windows, so I couldn't see the first rays of sunlight as the morning arrived. My eyes were sore from staring at the computer screen, my back was stiff from sitting in the chair for hours, and I desperately needed a coffee. Still I sat, industriously clicking away. I must have visited a thousand nail polish manufacturer's websites in the past...how long was it? Four hours? None of them had the exact composition of the substance found on the paper, if they even had an ingredient listing posted on the site at _all_. I was getting frustrated.

I sighed, leaning back and rubbing my eyes roughly. When my hands came away, I saw none other than Nick Stokes leaning in the doorway, watching me.

"Hi," I said, somewhat surprised. I straightened up and frowned at him. He was still wearing the ugly shirt.

"Hey," he said, "Do you know what time it is?"

"Nope," I said cheerfully. "Somewhere near 2?"

Nick laughed and shook his head, walking around the desk to peer over my shoulder at the computer screen, leaning in. "More like 6," he said. "You're...looking at cosmetics sites?" He gave me a funny look.

"Actually, I'm looking for cosmetic manufacturers that make nail polish remover with Vitamin E," I said. "Did you say six-o-clock? In the _morning_?"

"Yep," Nick said, raising his eyebrows at me. "Why're you looking for nail polish...stuff?"

"A smudge of it was found on one of those letters sent to you," I elaborated. Nick frowned, straightening up, suddenly on his guard. "Catherine brought me in on it. I actually worked on a pad used to write the letters in QD, but I didn't realize it. Do you know who's sending you the letters?"

"No," grunted Nick, turning away from me and crossing his arms. _Shutting me out, huh_? I thought. Body language: a useful thing, when used – and interpreted – properly.

"Well, do you know any women who have a grudge against you?"

Nick whirled and looked at me, almost angrily. "You think some woman's writing these letters and spilled nail stuff on one of them?" he asked incredulously. "It's probably just some random crazy that got a hold of my name in the phone book."

"How'd they know to send the letters to the Crime Lab, then?" I retorted staunchly, irritated with Nick's attitude. I was trying to help, after all!

"I don't know!" He threw up his hands in exasperation. "I don't really _care_. I told Cath to leave it, that it was probably just some dumb punk kid playing pranks, but she insisted we take it to QD, make it a case. I didn't want to take it this far."

"Nick..." I said, worriedly. He cut me off.

"No, Sadie. Look – this is probably just a prank, like I said. I wouldn't log in overtime about it."

I frowned. "But...I'm worried, Nick. What if this psycho is for real? What if he – or she, as I'm beginning to suspect – comes after you and kidnaps you or worse?"

Nick looked at me. "Trust me, it's not that easy to beat on a Stokes." He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, rookie. I can take care of myself."

I looked at his hand. "I wish you wouldn't call me 'rookie'," I said.

Nick grinned down at me and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the chair. "Come on. Let's go get some coffee. You've been sitting there too long."

I looked at my watch. As much as I would have (probably) liked to have coffee with Nick, I was tired and I wanted to get home. "Actually, I should probably be going," I said, "Fido will need feeding."

"Fido? You have a dog?" Nick asked, looking at me. I noticed he was still keeping a hold of my hand. He let go as he saw me looking.

"Nope, Fido's a cat," I said, grinning.

"And you named it...Fido."

"I'm weird like that."

"I can tell."

And then, looming upon us, that awkward pause. I dreaded it, but knew it was coming. I stood there like a fool, looking at him. He looked back at me as if I had sprouted an extra _three_ heads.

"Will you _ever_ have coffee with me?" Nick asked eventually, and he had such a boyish expression on his face I almost laughed. I didn't though. Instead I whispered:

"I've got a secret."

"What's that?" Nick said, one eyebrow raising.

I moved close, pausing for a second before brushing past him. As I reached the door I looked over my shoulder at him.

"I don't like coffee." Just because I drank it didn't mean I liked it very much, after all.

I left Trace with a smile on my lips and Nick's laugher echoing after me.


	7. A River in Egypt

** To Die in Las Vegas**

It's funny how, when something eludes you and you spend hours searching for it, you come back the next day – or night – and find it almost instantly. That was what happened to me.

"Yes!" I yelled, so loud that Greg Sanders came scurrying in from DNA.

"What happened?" he asked, looking concerned. I grinned over at him.

"Kimberson Kosmetics," I told him. "Manufacturer of an elite line of nail polishes – and nail polish remover!" I punched the air triumphantly, barely noticing Greg looking at me as if I was more insane than he was. "I am the man!" I said.

"No, you're the _WO_man," Greg corrected. He peered over my shoulder. "What's this about makeup?"

I laughed. "Not makeup. Nail stuff. With Vitamin E! You see, polish remover with Vitamin E in it was found on one of the letters sent to Nick. Catherine gave me a swab and I ran it yesterday."

Greg nodded and looked at me. "Was wondering where you'd got to. DNA is a lonely place without you, Turner." He gave me a puppy-dog-eyes look and backed towards the door, arms extended towards me melodramatically. "Come back, Sadie! Come back to me!"

I just laughed and shook my head as Greg left. I grabbed a printout of Kimberson Kosmetics' nail polish remover ingredients and paged Catherine. After five minutes I received a reply. _OutCS. Results2Gris._ I shrugged, taking this to mean Catherine was out on the field and I should give the results to Grissom. 

Uh-oh. This meant going to Grissom's office and actually talking to him. Nervously I got up and sidled out of the lab, only to run into none other than Sara Sidle, my saviour.

"Hey." She grinned at me. "I hear you're helping Catherine and Nick with those letters. How's it going?"

"Well, it's more helping Catherine with it, really," I said. "Nick doesn't seem to want anything to do with it. Hey, do you think you could get this to Grissom, or Catherine when she gets back?" I handed the paper to Sara and she looked at it.

"Kimberson Kosmetics? I've bought from them before," she said. "They have some nice hand and nail cream. Is this a recommendation for Catherine?" She quirked a brow at me.

"No, it's to do with the case," I said. I explained about the nail polish remover and Vitamin E. "So far Kimberson's the only company whose ingredients matched."

"Cool." Sara grinned her cute gap-tooth grin. "Hey, I hear Nick took you for a ride last week," she added, raising her brows.

"Oh," I said, trying not to blush. Why should I? Those had been purely innocent circumstances. Plus I wasn't interested in Nick. Was I? "Yeah, my car broke down. It was raining."

"Well, be careful next time you get into the Stokesmobile," said Sara with a wicked glint in her eye. "All you might see of it is the backseat."

"Do you know that from experience?" I asked carefully. Sara laughed.

"No, but I've known a couple of girls who have," she said. "I'll let you in on a little secret: our Nick's a bit of a woman-eater. You should be careful, he might just snap you up." Little brother, woman-eater, jock, nice guy…I was getting a lot of conflicting messages about Nick Stokes. I wasn't really sure what to think.

And I wasn't sure if I would mind so much if he snapped me up.

"I'll get this to Cath when she gets back," Sara said, waving the paper. "I'll see ya."

"Bye," I murmured, shaking my head. _Who are you, Nick? Who are you really_?

I wandered back into Trace to see another lab tech, Hodges, had arrived in my absence. I didn't like Hodges. He was one nasty dude, as Greg put it.

"Hello, Hodges," I said politely. He looked over at me and scowled.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were working in DNA with Sanders."

"I was, but I needed to use the spectrometer," I said. "Excuse me." I made my way past him to the computer and got another copy of the Kimberson printout before shutting down the browser. I retrieved the samples from the spectrometer and hot-footed it towards the door.

"You're working on the letters sent to Stokes, aren't you," said Hodges from behind me. I'd hoped to escape without having to talk to him, but I was obligated to reply out of politeness. Sighing, I turned around.

"Yes."

Hodges smiled nastily. "Probably just a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. I wouldn't put much stock in it – Stokes has a lot of those." He turned away from me dismissively. I wanted to smack him even more than I'd ever wanted to smack Nick. Instead I left Trace and crossed to DNA.

"Back so soon?" Greg asked cheerfully.

"I wish Grissom would assign me a permanent lab to work at," I said miserably, flopping into a spare chair. "It's so hard drifting between departments like this."

"Well, technically you're still in training with yours truly," said Greg. "It's obvious you don't need it, though, since you're already working on a case on your own without any help and you haven't blown anything up yet." He grinned. "Us lab techs typically do drift a lot, except me of course. I'm always here. But I'll talk to Grissom. for ya."

"Thanks," I said appreciatively. "I don't think my help was very helpful, still. I mean, how far can you go with a particular brand of lacquer removal stuff?"

Greg shrugged, fiddling with a microscope. "You'd be surprised. Cases have been made on as little as a microscopic fiber. Evidence doesn't have to be big to be important."

"Wise words," I laughed.

Greg just grinned at me. "Stick this in the thermocycler for me, will ya?" he said, handing me a bottle of clear liquid, presumably containing DNA. I did as asked, watching the little machine whirr away.

I wondered who invented all these little gadgets._ Someone with a lot of time on their hands, obviously_, I thought, smiling absently to myself. I yawned and glanced at my watch; I'd barely slept at all once getting home yesterday morning. I had dreams of monstrous red-nailed women kidnapping Nick Stokes or, worse, me. Why, I don't know; the subconscious is a funny thing.

Greg pottered around with his microscope, humming to himself and occasionally glancing longingly at the CD player on one of the desks. I'd heard he had a reputation for playing punk music extremely loudly, but luckily for him, he had not demonstrated this in front of me.

"Yo, Greggo," said a deep voice. Both Greg and I turned to face the newcomer, Warrick Brown. "And Sadie Turner. I hear you're the bomb, rookie – working the letters case like that, pitching in overtime." For once I didn't mind being called 'rookie'.

"Yeah, well," I said, blushing a little. "I obsess a little."

"A little? I heard you were here 'til 6am."

"Six? Are you nuts, Sadie?" Greg looked at me, wide-eyed. "That's...daytime! You could have run into Ecklie!"

"Ecklie?" I asked muzzily, aware of how slowly my brain seemed to be moving at the moment. _Need coffee, _I thought. Wait._ I hate coffee. Tea maybe._

"Conrad Ecklie, Day Shift Supervisor," Warrick chimed in. "Nobody in this entire lab likes him."

"Is he the bald one?"

Warrick laughed his deep, rumbling laugh. "Yeah, he's the bald one. Mean as anything, too. Tried to get half the Night Shift fired at one time or another. He had it in for Nick real bad when Kristy Hopkins died."

"Who?" I found myself interested. Kristy Hopkins...ex-girlfriend maybe? "What happened?" I pressed. Warrick had probably come to DNA to submit evidence for analysis but seemed to have forgotten about it. I decided not to steer him back onto the subject.

"Oh, she was...a friend...of Nick's. He was real cut up about it after." Warrick suddenly looked uncomfortable, as if he had breached the barrier between casual conversation and personal details about another CSI. He cleared his throat and turned to Greg. "Hey, I need you to take a look at this." He extended a pair of panties in a plastic bag.

"My pleasure," purred Greg. "Where'd you find them? Ecklie's office?"

"Yeah, these are his spares," said Warrick dryly.

I smiled and turned back to the thermocycler, wondering idly about Nick's seemingly unfortunate love life.

Not that it was particularly important to me, oh no. I wasn't romantically interested in Nick Stokes in the least.

Nope.

Not me.

Really.

Oh, _damn_.


	8. Let It Snow

** To Die in Las Vegas**

**  
**

On Thursday night, it started to snow.

I was in the parking lot at the time, getting out of my Taurus, about to head into the warm interior of the Vegas Crime Lab. I felt something soft and wet touch my hair, and instantly I felt myself in fear of a passing bird. When my fingers came away frosty, however, I felt sure it wasn't bird poo that had crystallized on its way down to earth.

I looked up and was hit in the eye by a snowflake. It _hurt_. I scrubbed away the snow from my stinging eye and stopped in the middle of the lot, just watching as more and more flakes fluttered to the ground.

It was nearing the end of January. It shouldn't have been snowing. Still, I didn't mind the slight distraction that the weather offered.

Catherine had hit a dead end with Nick's hate-mail case. It turned out Kimberson Kosmetics sold to hundreds if not thousands of stores across the country, and even narrowing it down to Vegas left a margin of error a hundred stores wide. It would take forever to track down every single person who purchased nail polish remover, so Catherine abandoned the idea and decided to check out who had purchased the stuff online. That was turning out to be a dead end, too, since Catherine didn't have a warrant or reason enough to get one. "Oh, there was some of that stuff on a threatening letter sent to one of our staff" just wasn't a convincing enough argument for a judge, apparently.

So my so-called 'lead' had turned up nothing. Go figure. So much for making a good CSI. Not that I wanted to be one, anyway. I hadn't even worked in the Lab for more than a month and a half and already I was stressed out all the time, getting hardly any sleep, and my social life had gone out the window.

Woe. If it was so awful, how come I turned up for work sometimes a half hour early? a treacherous voice in my head asked. Got me there, self.

I sighed as I stood in the snow, letting the tiredness and the stress wash over me. Just for a moment, I forgot about the endless DNA samples, the photos of crime scenes, the unidentified substances, the fingerprints, the blood...Just for a moment, though. I was jerked back to reality by a hand on my shoulder.

I turned around to see Nick Stokes wearing a daggy, but warm-looking, grey sweater. He grinned at me. "You're all covered in snow," he said.

"Do you always have to state the obvious?" I asked dryly, brushing slowly-melting flakes off my arms and shoulders.

To my surprise, Nick reached out and brushed his hand through my hair. I shivered. "You had snow in your hair," he explained, though I didn't much mind even if he was lying. "You're early," he continued. "Shift doesn't start for another half-hour."

"I like to be on top of things," I said, shrugging. I noticed a devilish grin spread across Nick's face and blushed. 

"'On top', huh?" he asked. My blush deepened. The guy was incorrigable!

"I didn't mean it like that," I huffed.

"I know," Nick laughed. "Come on, now we both have some spare time, I can finally get you to sit down for some – for a hot beverage of your choice," he said. "We got hot chocolate and tea in the Break Room, I think."

"Thanks, but-" I began, but Nick cut me off, grabbing my arm and gently steering me towards the lab doors.

"No excuses, little lady," he said, and the Southern title made me laugh. "You're gonna sit down and have a drink with me whether you like it or not."

He tugged me through the snow – which had already started to turn into rain – and into the Crime Lab. There was the usual bustle of activity, and no one noticed the CSI and the lab tech as they made their way through the chaos. That is, except the Evil Receptionist, who I felt glaring at the back of my head as we passed.

Since Night Shift hadn't officially begun yet, the lab was mostly empty of people I knew. The Break Room was empty as Nick dragged me inside and shut the door, blocking out the usual lab noises of people talking, machines whirring and test tubes clinking. "Alone at last," Nick enthused, spreading his arms.

"You have a real talent for choosing crap clothes, did you know that?" I said, staring at his grey-covered chest. "That sweater is the epitome of bad taste."

"Well, excuse me," Nick said, smiling. "I'm from Texas. We go for comfort first. I'd rather not be freezing my ass off out there just to look cool and end up cool...literally."

"Fair enough," I chirped, turning towards the kettle on the bench and flipping it on after making sure it was full of water.

"Nuh-uh," Nick said, barrelling forward and shoving himself in front of me. "I'll do the honours. What're you having?"

I stepped back, smiling a little. Texan chivalry at its best! "Tea, white, three sugars."

"Damn," he said. "Do you want to give yourself a coronary?"

"Tea with too much milk and sugar doesn't give you a coronary," I said. "Elevated blood sugar levels, maybe. You forgot you're talking to a molecular biology student, Nick."

"Got me there," he said, getting the milk from the bar fridge and making me up some tea. He turned and handed me the steaming mug a moment later. I sipped it.

"Perfect." I gave him a thumbs-up with my free hand, and settled onto one of the formless couches.

"Good." He fixed himself a coffee and sat next to me. Not too close, but not too far away either. I was beginning to wonder if Nick Stokes was...interested in me. Romantically. I was also beginning to wonder the same thing about me, for him. _This sooo complicates things_, I thought. Last thing I needed was an office romance!

"You look tired," Nick said, glancing over at me and taking a sip of his coffee. "How much sleep have you been getting?"

I shrugged. Apparently I wasn't the only one good at reading people. "Not much," I said truthfully. "I keep having weird dreams about this fhappy little field of bunnies and flowers and DNA chains and then Hodges comes along and eats the bunnies." I blinked. _What a tool you are_, I thought to myself.

Nick also blinked, and then laughed. "So you've run into Hodges, then?"

"It's kind of hard not to," I said, cradling the hot tea in my hands and sipping it slowly. It really _was_ good. I wondered if Nick was a good cook, and my thoughts went further, wondering if I'd ever get to find out..._Stop that!_ "He's a bit of an...um..." I didn't want to swearword in front of Nick, though anything less than an expletive could not describe Hodges.

"Ass?" Nick laughed, and I grinned. 

"Yeah, that's the word," I said. I laughed into my tea, running out of things to talk about. So much for me being a people-person when I couldn't even handle talking to one ... person."So, Sadie," said Nick, saving the day once again. "What got you into forensic science?"

"Well, it wasn't forensic science specifically that I was interested in," I said, glad he had picked a topic I was at home with rather than.... Oh, I don't know. Bugs, maybe, but that was more a Grissom thing or so I'd heard. "I just wanted to learn how chemicals worked and the human body's chemical system and...stuff. So I went to college and got a BS and an MS. I don't think anyone expected me to do that well, really, my mom was surprised when I was offered a place here."

"You were _offered_ a place?" said Nick, raising his dark brows. "Wow. That's quite an accomplishment. Sometimes it takes years for anybody to get a spot in the lab."

I shrugged modestly. I hadn't known that. "Well, I sort of put my résumé out there to all the labs and chemists, and one of them happened to be the Vegas Crime Lab. I never really intended to go around identifying semen stains all day, but...here I am."

"I'm glad," said Nick, smiling. I noticed how when he smiled, the crow's feet at the edges of his eyes creased up and the smile lines at the edges of his mouth became more pronounced. I liked Nick's face when he smiled.

"So am I, actually," I said, taking another gulp of the cooling tea. "It's pretty stressful, though. I don't know how you handle going to crime scenes and having to collect all the evidence and then come back here and get it all examined. Us lab techs have a pretty small role compared to yours."

"Yeah, but your role is an important one," Nick said, pointing a finger at me. "If it weren't for the extras, the set would be empty, right?"

I laughed. "Nice metaphor," I said.

Nick shrugged and grinned. "I try. Grissom's the master at metaphors, though."

"'The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man,'" a calm voice said from behind us. Both Nick and I turned to see Grissom standing in the doorway. The man was so damned quiet I hadn't even heard him come in! I wondered how long he had been standing there, probably a long time, judging by the smile on his face.

"What's that from?" asked Nick, raising his coffee mug in a salute to his boss. I did the same.

"Jose Ortega y Gasset," Grissom said, crossing to the coffee percolator. "The Dehumanisation of Art."

"Never heard of it," Nick said dismissively.

"I didn't think you would," said Grissom.

I realized I had completely forgotten to ask Nick about Kristy Hopkins, and God knows I couldn't do that with Grissom in the room. Oh well. It was probably better I didn't, I had a feeling the thing would touch a sore spot with Nick, as apparently this Kristy had kicked the bucket. I'd just have to do a little investigating of my own, later...

"How are you getting along, Sadie?" asked Grissom with his back to me, fixing coffee rapidly. "How do you like working here?" He was in Supervisor Mode, apparently.

"Oh, it's great," I enthused, perhaps a little over-the-top, for Nick gave me a frown. I shrugged. "Most of the time," I amended. "Working nights is harder than I thought."

"You get used to it," said Grissom.

"Yeah, I can't remember the last time I was awake during the day," laughed Nick, finishing off his coffee and getting up. Apparently our little tête-à-tête was over.

I just smiled and sipped my lukewarm tea as Grissom and Nick started talking shop about some case or other. I also remembered that I had forgotten to ask Nick about the letters...namely, if he'd gotten another one. I guessed not, though, judging from his carefree attitude.

I only wished I could feel the same about it.

To my surprise, I saw that Grissom had left abruptly during my daydreaming. I hadn't been paying attention to what they were saying, and I turned to see Nick still sitting next to me. He was looking at me with a strange expression.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. "What happened with Kristy Hopkins?" I blurted. I knew this would ruin the mood of good-natured companionship, but I had to know. "I heard you and her...were involved. And she died."

Nick sighed deeply and looked away from me. "Greg told you, didn't he?"

"Greg and Warrick," I said, nervous, waiting for Nick to explode with anger or...something. Instead he just looked defeated.

"Oh, God," he muttered, avoiding my eyes. He was silent for a few moments before speaking, slowly, haltingly. "Kristy was.... a prostitute I met during a case." He turned to see my eyes go wide. "I didn't pay her or anything!" he said, offended. I let out a breath. "I helped her out a couple times," he continued reluctantly, seeming to think he owed me an explanation, "And...well... one thing led to another and we slept together."

He made it sound so scandalous, as if it never happened. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The guy probably thought I'd hate him, but I didn't. I waited for him to finish the story.

"She was killed the same night, by her...pimp, I guess. Day Shift thought I did it and Ecklie tried to pin it on me. I can't say I blame him; my DNA and fingerprints were everywhere. But Catherine got to the bottom of it." He shrugged and looked at my face. "You're right," he said, "I don't exactly have a great track record with women."

"Maybe you should try men?" I suggested, allowing the hint of a smile to spread across my lips. Nick looked at me, wide-eyed, apparently thinking I was serious; but when he saw my expression he laughed.

"Maybe." He looked away.

"Nick," I said, putting my hand on his. "You're a great guy, you know that?"

He looked into my eyes, and then at my mouth. My breath hitched as he leaned forward. _He's going to kiss me! Now! Here! The walls are glass! Everyone will see! Why do I care? He's going to kiss me!  
_  
"Nick," said an all-too-familiar voice. Nick jerked away from me as if he'd been stung and turned to look at Grissom. _Damn, that guy is quiet!_ I thought, annoyed as all hell about it. "About that case," the supervisor continued, walking back to the counter and dumping another teaspoon of sugar into the coffee he still held. I looked away from him as he glanced towards me. I wondered if my face was as red as it felt.

I got up abruptly as Grissom and Nick started talking. I walked to the sink and washed out my cup, placing it in the drying rack. Without a glance back at Nick or Grissom, I left the room, to go elsewhere and wait for my embarrassment to subside.

_That's the last time I'm going to have an up-close-and-personal with Nick Stokes_!


	9. Hallelujah

**To Die in Las Vegas**

The mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph became my best friends once I was stationed, more-or-less permanently, in Trace. I became the official Trace Girl. I now found myself identifying unknown substances, analysing fibres, comparing heckle marks underneath the comparison microscope and doing all sorts of Trace-y things.

I was happy. Being punted over to Trace meant Grissom acknowledged the fact I wasn't that much of a rookie anymore. I realized I'd been there for over a month, so technically my 'evaluation' period was over. I often wonder how I survived it.

Though I'd longed for independence, the cold quiet of the Trace lab was lonely without the good-natured bumbling of Greg Sanders. I was all on my lonesome and had no one to talk to, except for Hodges who, to my eternal chagrin, often worked in Trace.

It was a Tuesday. Hodges was using the mass spec/gas chromatograph to identify something from a Day Shift crime scene, and I was filling out paperwork. I hated paperwork, but it was necessary in this kind of job. I could only wonder how Grissom tolerated it; the poor guy had acres of the stuff on his desk last time I saw it.

Pen scratching across the paper, I let the low hum of the lab machinery wash over me, mingling with the distant noises of people bustling about and getting on with business. I heard Hodges cough from behind me but I ignored him. Just because I worked with the guy didn't mean I had to like him or even talk to him.

He coughed again, even louder this time. Casting a pleading glance at the ceiling, I turned slowly in my chair to look at him. Hodges in many ways resembled a horse. Horses were big, dumb creatures at the best of times. I didn't like horses, and I liked Hodges even less.

"So, you and Nick, huh?" he said nastily, grinning at me. I frowned.

"I beg your pardon." What I really wanted to say was, 'Shut up you horrible little man. Go boil your head and save us all a world of annoyance.' I didn't, though often afterwards I wished I had.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me," scoffed Hodges. "Half the lab's talking about you two. You had _coffee_ together."

"I had tea, actually," I said curtly. "And I don't see how that's any of your business. Besides, we're not.... we're colleagues. Aren't we allowed to enjoy a hot beverage together?" I finished with some chagrin, tapping the pen I still held in my left hand.

"Sure, whatever you say," grinned Hodges. He turned away dismissively.

"Wait, what do you mean – half the lab's talking about us?" I asked, a frown furrowing my brow. Hodges spoke to me over his shoulder.

"Everyone knows you have a thing going on. No point denying it."

He would say nothing further. After a moment of glaring at the back of his head, I went back to my paperwork, my mind whirling.

So people in the lab thought Nick and I had a thing? Knowing Hodges, he was probably lying, but the possibility made me nervous. It wasn't even as if Nick and I were together in any way. We weren't even particularly good friends. In fact, when I'd first met him, I hadn't liked him one bit. Sure, he was growing on me, but...No. Office romances were a no-go where I was concerned.

I reassured myself with this thought and finished off my paperwork.

My mind stayed resolutely away from Nick Stokes that night. I was determined not to think about him. I wasn't interested. Nope. Not at all.

_Oh, Jesus_, I thought. _I am. What am I going to do?_

I went home at 2am, deciding I needed a good sleep and a think. My Ford Taurus started on the first turn of the key, something I was quite relieved about; it had been a bit iffy since that night in the rain and the subsequent repairs.

It didn't take me long to get home. I pulled into the driveway of my modest little house – it had only been built a couple of years back and as such, was relatively modern looking. The front yard was a bit overgrown; I hadn't had an opportunity to do any gardening since I'd been employed at the Crime Lab.

As soon as I'd stepped into the house, Fido rocketed out of my bedroom and tried to kill me by winding between my legs and tripping me up as I tried to walk. I picked him up. Fido was an orange tabby, relatively small for his age, and he had one good eye – the other had been sealed shut by some accident or other. I'd rescued him a year back when I'd found him rummaging in my trashcan one night. He was a foul-tempered thing most of the time, but I loved him anyway.

Fido squirmed and escaped my grasp as I staggered into my bedroom, divesting myself of my shoes and clothes. I found a ratty old Snoopy t-shirt and collapsed into bed, pulling the covers over my head. If I didn't, Fido would often stick his butt in my face until I got up to feed him.

"I'll feed you later," I muttered as I felt Fido jump onto the bed. The first shadows of sleep were already creeping across my mind, and I could feel myself falling into the abyss of unconsciousness. I let it engulf me, and whisk me off to the land of dreams.

I dreamed. That field with the DNA strands and the bunnies made an appearance, but the cameo was Nick Stokes in a disgusting green paisley shirt. Unfortunately I was too horrified about the shirt to notice anything else in the dream.

When I woke it was daylight and there was a thunderous knocking on the door. Groaning, I staggered out of bed and pulled on the closest pair of pants I could find. I didn't know what time it was but this had to be the first time I was up during daylight hours in... well, days.

I stumbled towards the front door, sleep still crowding my brain. It was probably one of my old college buddies; I hadn't spoken to any of them in a few weeks and they would no doubt be wondering how I was doing. Failing that, it was probably my mother. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. I really didn't want to face my mom right now.

Still, I pulled the door open, and peered out bleary-eyed into the sunshine. A tall figure, taller than any of my old friends or my mother, stood sillhouetted in the light. I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and slowly the face of Nick Stokes came into focus.

"What are you doing here?" I rasped. I sounded like a frog. I was never my best after waking up first thing. "How did you know where I live?"

Nick grinned, looking me over. I was suddenly very aware of my appearance. Snoopy shirt, dishevelled hair, no makeup – disaster! _Oh god,_ I thought. _I hope this is a nightmare_. "I gave you a ride home once," he said. "Remember?"

"Of course, but I wasn't counting on you remembering how to get here," I said, slumping on the doorframe and rubbing my eyes. What was he doing here?

"I bring Diet Coke and takeout," he said, holding up a plastic bag. "I figure this is the closest I'm gonna get to having dinner with you, so..."

"What time is it?" I croaked. _He never said anything about dinner_, I thought peevishly. _Well, of course not – I would have said no_, the treacherous part of my brain shot back.

"Time to rise and shine, cupcake," said Nick cheerfully. I groaned.

"Takeout you said? What kind?" I was feeling a little more awake, and very eager to get my appearance sorted before Nick got the image of me as a post-slumbering monster stuck in his head.

"Mexican."

"Burritos?"

"Absolutely." He continued to grin.

"Burritos for breakfast..." I murmured, a smile suffusing my face. "My hero." I moved aside so he could enter.

Nick did so, looking around my digs. I wished I'd cleaned the house in the last...oh, week or so; something I would have done had I known he was coming. As it was, the house was a mess. Nick navigated his way to the kitchen as if he'd lived here his entire life, and started unpacking food on the crowded countertop. The remains of a Chinese expedition were still lying there. I felt embarassed. There was enough there to feed two people and I'd eaten the lot. Oh well. Nothing for it now.

"I'm just gonna..." I made vague gestures towards the bedroom. Nick nodded.

"Sure. Where're your plates?" I pointed to a wall cupboard and then staggered off into my bedroom.

The first order of business was brushing my hair. I went to the dressing table with its large mirror and peered at my reflection. I looked awful. My hair, not one to remain at the best of times, had gone all sproingy, something that happened when I didn't bother to wash or brush it before going to bed. I brushed it out, trying to get it to lie flat, but I had to eventually settle for tying it in a ponytail. I didn't bother with makeup – there was no way I could salvage my face at this point – and set to finding some clean clothes to wear.

Once I had donned a faded old pair of jeans (they were the only clean ones around) and an old UNLV sweatshirt, I padded barefoot back into the kitchen. I saw that Nick had cleared away the refuse on the counter and had actually managed to find the kitchen stools I had scattered around the house for various reasons. There were two plates, two knives, and two forks set up, along with two wonderful steaming burritos.

"Oh," I moaned rapturously, overcome with a desire to hug Nick to death. "Nick, you truly are the best." I hurried over to the counter and straddled a stool, looking over at Nick, who was pouring Diet Coke into two clean glasses he had somehow managed to find.

"I aim to please," he said, sliding over a glass. I took it and downed the fizzing cola in five seconds flat. "Woah. Slow down there, you might give yourself a sugar rush."

"It's Diet Coke, not pure sugarcane," I said disdainfully. "Which one's mine?"

"Whichever one you want."

I grinned and grabbed the nearest plate, wolfing down the burrito as if I hadn't eaten for a week. To be honest, it felt like that. Nick watched me, wide-eyed, as I stuffed nearly a quarter of the burrito into my mouth. It occurred to me that I might have used some manners, but I was too hungry to care at that moment.

"You're going to give yourself indigestion," he said as he rounded the counter and sat next to me. He dug into his burrito with equal, if not more, gusto than I had shown and I snorted with laughter into a mouthful of burrito. This was painful, as bits of burrito nearly came out my nose.

"Mmph."

"Good?" Nick smirked at me. I nodded, my mouth full.

We ate in relative silence, me finishing about two minutes before Nick did. I sighed contentedly as I brushed crumbs off my shirt. "I haven't felt this good in a long time," I said.

Nick finished off his burrito and grabbed a napkin from the pile I kept on the counter, wiping his mouth. "I'm glad," he said, looking over at me. I shifted uncomfortably underneath his gaze.

"You know," I blurted, unable to tolerate another Awkward Silence, "half of the lab thinks we've got a 'thing' going on?" I laughed nervously to show I thought it was a ridiculous idea, though I didn't really. Nick stared at me with that 'Oh-my-god-you've-grown-another-head' look again.

"Haven't we?" he asked cheerfully, standing up and collecting empty plates and cups. I gaped at him.

"Wh-what?"

"I said, haven't we? Got a 'thing', I mean."

"Well...well, no," I said. "I mean, I didn't get a memo. Besides..."

Nick piled the dishes into the dishwasher. It occurred to me how...at home he seemed, in my house. Something seemed right about him standing in my kitchen doing dishes. Also, I didn't half mind him saving me the effort.

I stared at him as he came back around the counter. "Sadie..." He didn't seem to know what to say. He reached out and ran his index finger along my jaw. I just sat there like a fool.

"Why do you think I came here?" Nick said, after a moment.

I shrugged. "To bring me food." I grinned, nervously.

"I came here to ask you if you'd go to dinner with me some time. And I don't mean dinner like Mexican takeout. I mean dinner as in... dinner."

"Dinner," I repeated. "With you."

"Yeah. If you don't hate me because of what happened with Kristy," he said. He looked so serious I just wanted to burst out laughing. I didn't, though. I suspected if I had it would have offended his masculinity.

"I think you got your answer when I didn't slam the door in your face," I said. "I don't get out of bed for just anybody, you know. Or...vice versa." I grinned, but it faded after a moment. "I can't hate you for what happened with Kristy. You didn't kill her. If anything, it shows you don't discriminate against women – no matter their profession." I smiled.

Nick grinned slightly.

There was another silence.

"Good." Nick smiled and leaned forward. _Oh God, he's going to kiss me!_ I thought frantically._ In my own kitchen! _

"Wait, wait," I said, turning my head away a little. Nick frowned at me. "I...I, uh...I have burrito breath." I chuckled worriedly. Nick laughed.

"So do I."

He kissed me then, and it was good. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought I heard a heavenly chorus somewhere. I kissed him back (of course! I was a fool if I didn't), ignoring the taste of burritos. It was quite nice, actually.

He pulled away rather abruptly and almost fell over. I opened my eyes, which had closed sometime during mid-kiss, and looked down. Fido was rubbing frantically against Nick's leg, trying to trip him up. He probably thought Nick was trying to eat my face or something.

"Nick Stokes, meet Fido. Fido...Nick," I said. I could already tell that Nick didn't like cats just by the look on his face. But maybe that was just because Fido had interrupted him during the activity of...well, eating my face.

Fido started to claw Nick's leg. "Ow!" Nick winced, bending to brush the cat off. I laughed, snapping my fingers and pointing out of the room. Fido gave me a sour look with his one good eye and rushed off obediently. He knew he wasn't allowed in the kitchen.

"Sorry," I said apologetically as Nick, crouched on the linoleum floor, rubbed his assaulted leg. "Fido seems to like you, though."

Nick shook his head and grinned. "Hate to say it, but I'm more of a dog person."

"I figured. I'll get a dog and name it Felix."

Nick laughed and stood, taking my arm and bringing me to my feet with him. He kissed me again, and the second was better than the first. His lips were warm. I decided I really, really liked kissing Nick Stokes and hoped I'd get to do it again. A lot.

"This complicates things, you know," I said as we both came up for air.

"Maybe I like things complicated." Nick brushed away a strand of my hair that had fallen out of its ponytail.

"Go figure," I laughed. Nick smiled and pulled me closer. I did not resist.

The moment was broken by an insistent beeping sound. Nick sighed and pulled away from me, pulling his pager out of his pocket. "Damn," he swore. "I gotta go." He looked at me with puppy-dog-eyes that could rival Greg Sanders' best pleading look. I couldn't help but smile.

"It's okay. I understand. Pulling a double?"

"More like a triple," grumbled Nick. "When's your next night off?"

"Night off?" I injected confusion into my voice. "What's that?"

Nick laughed. "Okay. I'll call you."

"I know you won't," I said. "I'll see you at work though."

Nick pointed a finger at me. "I _will_ call," he said. "Promise."

"Scout's honour?" I smirked.

"Better," he said. "Stokes' honour." He swooped down and kissed me again, deeply, and then swept out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there with closed eyes and a dumb grin on my face.

I waited until I heard the front door close to start dancing happily around the room.

I stopped when I saw Fido, sitting in the doorway, giving me his patented one-eyed "What-the-hell-are-you-doing?" look. Cats were very good at that.

I just laughed.

I really did feel happier than I had in weeks. 


	10. Uh Oh

**To Die in Las Vegas  
**

I hated working at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, now more than ever. Oh, it had been fine at first, I'd gotten used to the departmental game of dominoes that went on constantly, but when I was transferred to day shift I was really, really, _really_ pissed off.

First of all, my brain had finally gotten used to the idea of working all night and sleeping all day. So now I had to flip a switch and somehow manage to trudge into work at 8am every morning. I was usually fast asleep by that time.

Secondly, being a day shift lab technician meant I had to deal with Conrad Ecklie. He had to be the most unpleasant man I had ever met. He was mean, demanding, and had absolutely no sense of time where the process of analysing evidence was concerned.

For instance, the first day I turned up for my new shift, Ecklie stormed into Trace and bitched me out for being five minutes later. This was a day or so after Nick had turned up my doorstep, so I was in pretty good humour and prepared to take it.

"You're late," Ecklie had said, storming into the Trace lab. I looked up from some paperwork I was doing – stuff to do with the damn shift change – and blinked.

"CSI Ecklie?" I asked, just to make sure. He was bald and ugly, matching the description Warrick had given me, but I had to make sure.

"Yes," Ecklie grunted. "And you're the newbie."

The way he said it made me feel like the lowest life-form on earth. I frowned. "I've been working here for over a month and a half...Sir," I added the last part with as much disdain as he had shown for me.

"Yes, well, run this through AFIS will you?" He tossed a yellow evidence envelope at me. I caught it nimbly and opened the envelope, sliding out some adhesive tape with a smudged partial print on it.

"I'll try," I said, "but it's pretty smudged and it looks like only a partial so it might take awhile."

"I want a match by lunchtime," said Ecklie, and left before I told him it might not be possible. I sighed.

I did not enjoy working days.

Today, a week later, the Trace lab was quiet. Hodges was working nights at the moment. That was the only good thing about my shift-switching, I thought.

Unfortunately, being all on my lonesome gave me time to brood. About Nick Stokes.

As I had predicted, Nick hadn't called me the day after our Burrito-fest. Nor the day after that. Or the day after that. And as I was working days now, I didn't often see him around the lab. The couple of times I had, presumably when Nick was pulling a double, I went after him to say hello.

I followed him as he walked briskly towards the Locker Room. Several techs, an intern, and a police officer blocked my path to him, so by the time I had shouldered myself away from the crowd, Nick was inside the locker room. I stopped by the door, hearing his voice within.

"Yeah...I'm at work. I know. I want to see you more too! I know you came all this way..." He sounded like he was talking on a phone, as there was no other voice.

Oh. My. God. He was talking to another girl. This fact hit me in the face with a feeling of rock-solid certainty. I felt my face burn with anger and embarrassment as I lurked by the locker room door. I felt like a high school girl lurking by the men's toilets while her cheating boyfriend made out with another girl. It was sort of like that, though.

Nick had kissed me. Several times. That meant something, didn't it? And he wanted to have dinner with me. I had thought he wanted some semblance of a relationship, he'd already said we had a 'thing'. And now he was off having phonesex with some other chick!

Well, maybe not phonesex. But I was angry! I was _entitled_ to think he was having phonesex if I wanted to exaggerate it like that.

I remembered the warnings I'd gotten about Nick, from both Hodges (unreliable) and Sara (considerably more reliable). They were right. Nick _was_ a ladies' man.

"All right, hon. Yeah, I'll see you tonight. Love you too." I heard Nick clattering around in the locker room after presumably hanging up, and turned quickly to leave.

"What are you doing?" Conrad Ecklie said, standing behind me with a nasty smile.

"Looking for the bathroom," I replied quickly, hoping my face wasn't still red.

"It's that way," he sneered. "I thought you said you'd been here a month and a half? Shouldn't you know where the bathrooms are?"

I just walked past him, saying nothing.

"By the way, I still haven't got a result from that print!" He shouted after me. I walked faster.

That had been three days ago. I hadn't seen Nick since then and I wasn't sure I wanted to.

I led my mind away from the unpleasant thought of Nick Stokes and his indiscretions, directing it towards identifying the unknown substance some other Day Shift persona had brought in earlier. My mind calmed, I was in the Zone and relaxed as I fiddled with the mass spectrometer.

The slight peace I had attained was shattered when Catherine Willows came in, a frown on her face. She went straight to me, as I was the only one in the room. "Sadie."

"Hi," I said, secretly glad of the distraction away from the mass spec. It would run on its own. I swivelled in my chair to face Catherine. "What's up?"

"Nick's got another letter," she said, ashen-faced. I stood up, my anger at Nick forgotten.

"Want me to have a look?" I asked, my frown matching the CSIs. She nodded.

"I think you better." She turned and led the way out of Trace.

I followed Catherine to the Layout Room. Nick was there, as was Grissom. Warrick was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, and Sara Sidle stood in a similar pose near the backlit table. I gulped. What could be so important that all the CSIs needed to be present? And where did I come into it?

Nick didn't even smile at me as I looked at him. The worry lines etched into his forehead were more pronounced, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes. _He's probably exhausted from banging his girl on the side,_ the vindictive part of my mind thought sourly.

Warrick nodded to me, Sara gave a tentative smile, and Grissom just looked at me emotionlessly. I felt very uncomfortable, and was just about to ask why I was there, when Catherine pointed to a single sheet of paper on the table.

I walked to the table and leaned over to read the scratchy writing on the single A4 sheet. I gasped, reeling back, looking with shock to Nick, and then to the rest of the CSIs.

The paper read:

_I'm going to kill your little girlfriend, Nick. Who's going to analyse **her** DNA once she's dead?_

"But...but I'm not...I mean, we... Why do you think it's referring to me?" I stammered, too shocked to feel embarrassed. Nick stepped forward; he was holding a plastic bag with an envelope inside. He handed it to me wordlessly, but did not move back, standing almost protectively near me. I had completely forgotten I was mad with him now. I turned the envelope over and almost dropped it.

It was addressed to _Nick Stokes, Sadie Turner, Las Vegas Crime Lab_. I felt dizzy. Nick steadied me with a hand on my shoulder as I swayed a bit. I did not push him away.

"This just got serious," Catherine said. "This guy – or girl – could be in the lab. Right now."

"We're stepping up security," said Grissom. "Everyone going in or out of this lab will be searched."

"Maybe it's better if Sadie stayed at home, Gris?" suggested Sara, looking to her boss, who shook his head.

"No. She'll be more vulnerable there. You live alone, don't you, Sadie?"

"I have Fido," I offered muzzily. The gravity of the situation hadn't hit me yet, I felt like my mind had floated off into a zero-g vacuum. Only Nick's hand, still on my shoulder, kept me anchored to the solid ground of reality.

"Her cat," Nick explained when Grissom gave me a funny look.

Ten minutes ago, everything had been normal. Ten minutes ago I had been sitting in Trace working a sample. Ten minutes ago my life hadn't been in danger.

"There's still a chance this could be a prank, right?" I said weakly. Nick looked at me.

"I remember you were one of the first to jump on the Nick's-in-danger bandwagon, Sadie," he said gently. I sighed and nodded my head, resisting the urge to snap at him. Yes, I was still angry. It was there, faintly, behind the mind-numbing fear.

"The guy hasn't done anything except threaten Nick and Sadie so far," Warrick piped up. "Who's to say he'll do anything?"

"You of all people know we can't take that chance, not with the safety of one of our people at risk," said Grissom sternly. I felt a little swelling of emotion in my gut; I was one of 'his people'. "We know he's been watching Nick and Sadie. Like Catherine said; for all we know he could be one of us."

Everyone looked at each other uneasily. I just looked at the floor.

"Nah," said Warrick. "Not any of us in this room, anyway. Unless...Sara? You use the Kimberson stuff, don't you?" He gave her a suspicious look.

Sara laughed slightly. "Yeah right, Warrick. I'm stalking Nick. Sure."

"I bet you are," Warrick teased. "Always knew there was something funny about you, Sidle."

"Enough," said Grissom's quiet, but stern voice. "This isn't a time to fool around. We need to get to the bottom of this. Catherine, re-examine every letter. Compare those partials you got from the envelopes to anyone who has ever been inside this lab. Sara, talk to Brass, see if he can't find any lab employees who have purchased the nail polish remover. Nick, I don't want you or Sadie to go anywhere unsupervised, I'll have an officer with you soon." Nick opened his mouth to protest, no doubt to insist no one had ever beaten a Stokes, but Grissom cut him short. "No arguments. Warrick, you're with me."

"What are you going to do?" asked Nick worriedly, his grip on my shoulder tightening a bit as the CSIs erupted into activity. Catherine went about gathering the letters and Sara left, presumably to track down Jim Brass.

"Research," Grissom answered tersely, brushing past us with Warrick in tow. "Go to the Break Room. I'll have an officer meet you there."

"Gris, that's really not necessary," said Nick. "No one's gonna attack us in the Break Room!"

Grissom stopped and looked at Nick, and then to me. I flinched underneath his gaze. "All right, but don't go anywhere," he said. Nick nodded, and Grissom left with a final meaningful glance to Nick.

"Can we help, Cath?" Nick looked to the blonde woman, who shrugged and shook her head.

"You'd be tainting the evidence. I'll take care of it. You two go." She had a commanding matronly tone in her voice that I knew well. She sounded like my mother.

Anyway, the tone of voice worked. Nick tugged on my sleeve and I followed him out of the Layout Room.

I still felt dizzy.

_This can't be happening to me_, I remembered thinking.

Well, it was. And things were about to get a whole lot worse.


	11. Game Over

**To Die in Las Vegas  
**  
Nick Stokes and I made our way slowly to the Break Room. The dizziness and shock had not passed; I still found it hard to believe someone was out to get me. _It's got to be just a joke_, I thought to myself, and then I remembered the faces of the CSIs. They had been worried. And anything that got a CSI worried, well...

"Is it just me or does everyone seem to be overreacting?" I said to Nick on the way. He shrugged.

"Death-threats aren't taken lightly around here," he said darkly. I was silent as he led me into the Break Room. "Tea?" he asked me, moving towards the bench. I shook my head. I didn't think I could keep anything down at the moment.

I flopped onto the couch like a freshly-caught fish. Who was this psycho sending those letters? I wondered. Catherine said it was probably someone in the Lab. But who? Hundreds of people must work here. And hundreds more would have access...police officers, coroners, medical examiners...So many people. But who would be unhinged enough to threaten my life?

Nick sat down next to me a moment later with a cup of coffee. "You okay?" he asked, his dark eyes concerned as he looked over at me.

I sighed. "Not really. I guess before now...things didn't seem very real. It only takes someone threatening your life to make everything seem _extremely_ real," I added sourly.

"It happens more than you'd think...but usually we can track the letters. Most of the time they're from people we've helped put away, or their angry families. I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone from the Lab, whoever it is knows enough to cover their tracks." Nick sipped his coffee, frowning.

"What about the nail lacquer remover?" I said. "They slipped up." We were talking like...friends. Like he wasn't seeing some girl on the side. I wondered how he could act so nonchalant. I'd ask him about it, as soon as an opportunity arose.

"Maybe it was planned, put there to throw us off balance," said Nick. "Seriously though, how far can you get with nail polish remover?" His voice was derisive.

"Yeah. Guess it was stupid of me to think it'd help track down this mental ward escapee." I looked away. Nick reached out and took my hand. Surprised, I looked at him. What about his other girl?

"Hey," he said gently. "It's not your fault. You did everything you could where the evidence was concerned. Not many people can say that."

I smiled slightly, uneasily, but my heart wasn't really in it. I exhaled heavily and tilted my head back to rest on the couch. The slightest feeling of doubt was niggling at my heart. Maybe he wasn't seeing another girl...

But no. Nick was a ladies' man. And I'd heard him say 'I love you' to his other girlfriend. _Other? I'm not his girlfriend,_ I insisted to myself, glancing down. Nick's hand was still resting on mine, but I didn't mind too much. "I can't believe this is happening," I said, and I wasn't talking just about the letters.

"Yeah, well, working here does come with its share of trouble," Nick said. "Just gotta take the good with the bad, I guess." He turned my hand over and traced his fingers along my palm. I shivered.

"You cold?" he asked, his eyes twinkling at me. I grinned.

"Nope. Kinda warm, actually." _Lame. Oh so lame. He's not even interested any more! He's got another girl!_ I thought, groaning inwardly.

He didn't laugh. Instead he clutched my hand tightly as if it was going to fall off. "Sadie," he said. "I'm really sorry about all this."

"Why?" I said. Was he apologizing for cheating on me? _Christ, Sadie, you're preempting. We weren't even together. Not properly. _"It's not your fault." _Yes it is, you bastard! Jerking me around like that, making me think you were interested!_

He shrugged and sighed. "Yes, it is. I mean...if we hadn't....if you and I weren't..."

I hesitated. Okay, now was time to find out if all my suspicions were true.

"Together?" I offered tentatively. He nodded, slowly. "Are we together, Nick? I mean...after that time you came to my house...it's like I haven't existed. Not in that little bubble that you call your life, anyway. I've barely seen you this whole week."

Nick looked embarrassed. "Actually...one of my sisters came to town," he said. "I've been taking a lot of time off to spend time with her. That's why I haven't been in touch."

So _that_ was who he was saying "I love you" to on the phone! It had to be. I felt an enormous sense of relief as I rushed to accept this probability, even though I had pretty much forced myself to try to forget about Nick since then. "Oh."

"Plus you've been working days," he pointed out gently, looking at me. "I'm on Graveyard."

"Yeah," I said guiltily. I didn't like the transition to working days; it had taken too long to get used to working nights. Now my sleep pattern was completely out the window, as evidenced by the dark circles under my eyes that took three inches of makeup to cover. "Departmental shuffling. Gotta love it."

"I do still want to have dinner with you," Nick said, changing the subject. I looked away. "My sister's going back this weekend, and I still have some time off. So if you wanted to-"

A loud cough sounded behind us. Nick broke off. I sighed heavily. _He was about to ask me out, damnit!_ I thought angrily, looking down at my feet. I heard Nick speak to the owner of the cough.

"Hey, Mandy."

It was Mandy Webster, one of the fingerprint technicians. She was dark-haired and often looked quite miserable; we hadn't exactly made friends. Still, I knew her, being a lowly tech myself. "Hi," I said. The look she shot me was pure venom. It was so full of hatred I almost jumped back. Nick didn't seem to notice, he just turned back to drinking his coffee. He did not take my hand again, though.

Mandy addressed me slowly, the look of hatred gone. I wondered if I'd imagined it. "Grissom sent me," she said. "I'm to be your babysitter, I guess." She smiled. I smiled back, tentatively, wondering why Grissom had decided to send Mandy after me. Who knew why Grissom did anything, anyway? I decided to go with it.

"Okay. Is there anything I can do? I mean, I'm gonna go crazy just sitting here, and Nick isn't helping." I grinned slightly as Nick elbowed me in the ribs.

"Actually, yes," said Mandy. "There's some clothing in the Drying Room. It's part of Warrick and Sara's case – a recent shooting. I guess you could help me sort it out."

"I thought you were the print tech, Mandy," said Nick teasingly, raising his eyebrows over his coffee cup at her. She hesitated, but then smiled.

"Well, with the whole stalker business, Warrick and Sara are all tied up, so..." She trailed off.

"Right." Nick grinned. I looked at him.

"You going to be all right on your own?" I said. "Or do you want to come with?"

"Nah, I'll stay here," said Nick. "I'm like Warrick, the Drying Room gives me the creeps. I'll meet you back here in, say, an hour?" He glanced at his watch.

"Sure." I got up. Nick grabbed my sleeve before I went and looked up at me.

"Hey. Be careful. You never know where this psycho might be hiding."

I nodded. He let go of me and I joined Mandy as she strode from the Break Room. We walked in silence to the Drying Room – like I'd said, Mandy and I? Not the greatest of friends. We were colleagues, though, and the silence (or so I'd like to think) was that of contemporaries working together.

We entered the medium-sized space that served as the repository for victim and suspect's clothing, nicknamed the Drying Room. Racks and racks of clothing filled it, desks too, with a couple of microscopes for examining fibres. A computer used for bloodspatter analysis and other goodies was set up in the corner.

Mandy led me through the racks into the very back of the room. "So, where's this clothing you were talking about?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"Here somewhere," Mandy murmured, crossing to an evidence box stacked in the corner and opening it up.

I found myself watching Mandy carefully as she rummaged through the box. I found myself thinking about fingerprints. A couple of partials had been found on the envelopes the letters were sent in, right? I looked at Mandy's nails as she picked up the box and put it on a nearby desk. Her nails were painted black.

I'd gone through a 'Goth' stage in high school. Every week I would paint my fingernails black. Black nail polish tends to chip very easily, though, so every Friday I would get out the nail lacquer remover and re-paint my nails.

_Oh my God. It can't be Mandy, can it?_

"Um, Mandy," I said nervously. "I just remembered. I have this...thing, and I have to go. Do you think you could handle this on your own?"

"No," said Mandy, and from the box she pulled out a .38 caliber gun, and pointed it at me.

My thoughts whirled into the chasm of hysteria. _It's Mandy, she's going to kill me, she's been stalking Nick and now she's going to kill me!_ I thought frantically, backing away and bumping into a rack of clothes. I was probably tainting the evidence but I didn't care. The barrel of a gun was staring me in the face and my blood felt as if it had turned to liquid nitrogen.

"Mandy, what are you doing?" I said, laughing nervously as I held up my hands. "I thought we were sorting clothes, not examining guns."

"The only piece of this gun you're going to be examining is the bullet when I put it between your eyes, slut," Mandy snarled. The look of hatred I thought I'd glimpsed back in the Break Room had returned. I had no doubt that Mandy loathed me with every fibre of my being. I just wondered _why_.

"Why?" I echoed my thoughts, trying to keep my voice steady. Panic was rising within me – we were both out of sight, hidden behind racks of clothing, so no passing staff member would see and come to my rescue. I was alone. Totally alone and defenceless...

"You stole Nick from me!" Mandy spat. I blinked. "He was MINE, my man, MINE! And you took him. You, with your diplomas and your lab coat and that deceptively innocent look on your face. I saw through it, though. I saw through your transparent personality! I knew what you were up to. And now I'm going to put a stop to it." Mandy pulled the hammer of the gun, and I heard the loud 'click' as a bullet was loaded into the chamber. I felt cold sweat sliding down the back of my neck. There was no way I could dive out of the path of the bullet in time.

"Mandy, Nick and I-" I began, but she cut me off.

"You shut up, bitch!" she almost screamed. "I was always just the fingerprint tech," she continued in a calmer voice. I noticed her hands were shaking. Maybe if I could just leap forward...but no, her finger was on the trigger, ready to squeeze it. I was doomed. _I don't want to die,_ I thought frantically. _Keep her talking, keep her talking...got to keep her talking... _"Running prints all day. That's all I've ever done. But you...you got everything. You got to work in DNA, in Trace, in QD...you got Nick..." Her voice trembled.

"You can have Nick," I almost sobbed. All rational thought was gone from me now, and all I could feel within was the burning desire to survive. I didn't want this crazy woman to kill me! Not now. I had too much of my life ahead of me. I didn't want to end up on Doc Robbins' autopsy table. "You can have him!"

"Oh, can I?" Mandy's eyes gleamed manically. "I'll keep that in mind after I kill you." She aimed the gun.

"No!" I screamed and charged forward. I knew she was going to shoot me, but if I had anything to do with it, she wasn't going to do it while I just stood there like a statue.

She was so shocked by my action that she didn't have time to pull the trigger. I crashed into her, bringing her to the ground. The gun skittered away, out of her grasp.

I tried to pin the writhing woman beneath me, but she raked her long black fingernails across my face. I cried out as pain seared three lines on my cheek, falling back a little. Mandy crawled out from underneath me, reaching for the gun, which had fallen underneath one of the clothing racks. I grabbed at her clothes, her hair, anything to keep her from getting at that gun. Snarling, Mandy turned back to me, smacking me so hard in the mouth my lip bled.

"Bitch!" she screamed. "I'll kill you!"

I punched her in the face, so hard my knuckles hurt. Mandy cried out, hair flying, eyes wild, and lashed out at me. She kicked me in the gut and I doubled over, winded and wheezing. She got up and staggered away, fingers grasping for the gun.

"Stop right there!" a strong voice rang out. I was still hunched on the ground, gasping, blood dripping from my lip and the cuts on my cheek, but I recognized the voice. It was Homicide Detective Jim Brass.

I'd met him once, on my first day at the Vegas Crime Lab. Grissom had been showing me the interrogation rooms when we ran into a short, balding man in a suit with a face that slightly resembled a bloodhound's. "Call me any time you need help, okay? Just as long as it's legal," he'd said to me, smiling.

Well, I sure as hell needed help now.

Mandy froze for a moment. I took the opportunity to look around – Jim Brass, flanked by Grissom, Catherine and a couple of police officers, stood at the edge of the row of racks. They all had their guns drawn, and Brass had his pistol levelled at Mandy.

Slowly, she got up, gun in hand. "Put the gun down, Mandy," said Grissom from behind Brass. "You don't need to do this."

"Oh yes I do," said Mandy. As if in slow motion, she turned towards me, raising the gun. I threw an arm over my face, as if that would stop the impending bullet. I heard Brass, Grissom and Catherine yelling, and then a fourth voice joined the cacophony. A gunshot rang out through the room, drowning the voices, so loud and close it deafened me. I waited for darkness to descend upon me, but I felt nothing. No pain. No bullet.

I was still alive.

Slowly, I lowered my arm. I saw Nick Stokes, prostrate on the ground, a struggling Mandy held on her stomach beneath him. The gun had again been thrown out of reach.

"Why didn't you just tell me, Mandy?" Nick was saying. "You should have told me! You didn't have to do this!"

"You never noticed me," Mandy said in a hollow, defeated voice. Tears were streaming down her face, onto the cold floor. "You never did."

"Oh, Mandy," said Nick, sounding tearful himself. I was still too winded to stand or speak, so I just crouched on the ground, letting the scene play itself out. "This is _not_ dandy."

The police officers that had been flanking Brass stepped forward. Nick relinquished his grip on the stricken tech, and the officers grabbed Mandy by the arms, hauling her up. They handcuffed her and lead her from the room, sobbing all the way.

I managed to get myself into a sitting position with my back against the wall. There was blood all down my neck and the front of my shirt and lab coat. My face and lungs felt like they were on fire, but I was alive. Nick walked to me and crouched, taking my shoulders into his hands and looking in my eyes.

"You okay?"

I nodded, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. Nick pulled me close into a tight hug that took my breath away – literally. Still, I held onto him for dear life, letting the tears flow. Everything had gotten on top of me, it seemed, and I was finally given an excuse to let go and just cry.

Getting a gun pointed at you was a damn fine excuse for crying, too.

"Don't worry," Nick whispered into my hair. I realized I was getting my blood all over his shirt, but I didn't think he'd mind. I didn't either – it was one of his disgusting shirts, a horrible paisley monstrosity. "It's over."

I sobbed into his shoulder like a little baby. And for once, I didn't feel ashamed of myself.

"It's over."

_It's over_.


	12. Post Impetus

**To Die in Las Vegas**

Somehow, after everything that had happened, I felt better.

After that night in the drying room I was whisked off to hospital, despite my feeble protests. Fortunately my face had required no stitches, though I sported a sizeable bandage for the better part of two weeks that made me look like Michael Jackson post-surgery. I went in to work anyway, because I am a dedicated and driven individual.

Well, not really. At this point, I just didn't have anything else.

I placed a couple of calls when I got out of hospital. I felt like I should. After all, when you're nearly killed by a deranged co-worker, your friends have a right to know, right?

I caught up with my best friend, Isabel, over the weekend. She was surprised that I had been the one to call her. She rocked up at 12am with champagne and a hot water bottle. How she had known I would need these things is still a mystery to me.

"Oh my gawd," she gasped as I opened the door. "Your _face!_"

Isabel was tall, blonde, and cosmetically-enhanced beautiful. She was also a fellow graduate from UNLV, but that was a small and insignificant fact. Last I heard she was working in some chemical plant or other, helping manufacture nuclear weapons. (Okay, perhaps not nuclear weapons, but it was something like that.)

I invited her into my decimated house. I had not cleaned for what felt like weeks, and I wasn't about to.

"Darling, you couldn't have called me at a better time," Isabel cooed as she fussed over my bandaged appearance. I hadn't told her what had happened over the phone as I suspected she wouldn't believe me. As we sat down to glasses of champagne and cheesecake, I told her everything that had occurred since I started work at the LVCL.

"So, this Nick guy," she said once I was finished. "Is he good looking?"

I smiled. I had figured this would be Isabel's reaction. Never mind the whole nearly-being-shot part, was the guy hot? "He's..." I searched for words. "Really, really, really ridiculously good looking."

Isabel grinned. "Worth it, then?"

"Worth nearly getting my head blown off by a crazed psychopath?" I paused, considering. "Oh yeah. Definitely."

We spent the rest of the afternoon gossiping about old college buddies, giving each other pedicures, and doing girly stuff I hadn't done for ages. It felt really good.

When Isabel left I sat in her perfumed wake, thinking. Did I really want this life, full of death and misery and crazy people? Did I really want to get involved with a guy who examined dead bodies for a living? Did I, when it came down to it, really _want_ this?

Oh, _hell_ yeah.

Full of resolve and goodwill towards all of mankind, I did the thing that I should have done a long time ago but put off for fear of scaring my cat.

I cleaned my house.

* * *

I went into work on Wednesday. Grissom had insisted on giving me a couple of extra days off, in light of me nearly being killed and all. Fido was happy to see me home, and I actually managed to get some sleep, not to mention my impromptu spring cleaning. (It was still winter, but the point was, I _cleaned_.)

Mandy had been arrested and put away on charges of attempted murder and assault. I was still amazed she had sent those letters – Mandy had always seemed sane, if not the nicest person in the world. It turned out she'd been on Xanax for manic depression, and had neglected to take it for quite a long time, which exacerbated her unstable state of mind. That, and her secret obsession for Nick, had set her off when she saw us together.

It turned out Mandy had, as I suspected, used the Kimberson Kosmetics nail polish remover. Brass had discovered Mandy had purchased the stuff online, and had promptly swung into action. He'd gone to the break room and told Nick, who was horrified, as I'd gone off with Mandy just five minutes earlier. And so Brass had grabbed a few uniforms, Grissom, Catherine and Nick accompanying them, and rushed off to the drying room...right in time to save my life.

I was still sporting the bandage on my face and my lip was pretty swollen, but I managed to make it look just like a bad Botox job with some concealer and lipstick. Even Hodges looked sympathetic when I rocked up to the Trace lab at 7:30am sharp. He was just going home, though, so I didn't need to deal with him staring at me and making disapproving noises.

I busied myself running a sample from one of Day Shift's cases through the mass spectrometer. Operating the machine was familiar and easy, the one comforting thing about being back at work.

I vowed never to go in the drying room again.

I was concentrating deeply on trying to identify a fibre from another case when I heard someone clearing their throat. "Hodges, I thought you went home," I said, not looking up from the microscope. "Haven't you got better things to do than to hang around here annoying me?"

"No, actually," said an all-too-familiar voice. I jerked away from the microscope as if the eyepiece had burned me, and swivelled to look up at Nick Stokes.

"Hi," I said timidly, all-too-aware of the disfiguring bandage on my face and my puffy lip. "I thought you were Hodges."

"I realized that," Nick said, smiling down at me benevolently. "How you feeling?"

"Like I was run over by an industrial steamroller," I said truthfully, "But otherwise okay. You?"

"I'm good," he said, walking over to me. I flinched as he brushed a lock of hair away from my face to look at my bandaged face. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"Me too," I said. "Glad that I'm okay, I mean. And glad that you're okay." I paused. "You know, you sort of saved my life. Mandy would have shot me if you didn't intervene."

Nick grabbed the chair that Hodges usually sat in and parked himself across from me. "Hey, all in a day's work," he said.

"Speaking of that, it _is_ daytime," I replied, glancing at my watch. "Shouldn't you be at home?"

"I'm pulling overtime," Nick said. "A new case rolled in last night; a triple. Grissom has us all working around the clock."

"And still you took the time to visit me," I said. "That's sweet." I grinned a parody of what I had nicknamed the Stokes' Shit-Eater.

"Come to dinner with me," Nick said unexpectedly. It wasn't an unwelcome question.

"When and where?" _Tell me and I'll be there, stud_, I thought in a bad Texan accent, holding back the laughter.

"Tonight, 8'o'clock. I'll pick you up."

"What about the case?" I gave Nick a sideways look. I wanted to have dinner with him, but no way was I going to bring down the wrath of Grissom for stealing away one of his CSIs.

"You'll be the only case I'm working on tonight." Nick smiled. I laughed. The line was so lame, but it worked. I was sucked in. Maybe it was his eyes. _No_, I thought. _It's the grin. Definitely the grin._

"I look awful," I said. I really didn't know why I was protesting so much.

"No you don't."

"Fine, I won't argue with you, Stokes," I said, holding up my hands in defeat. He looked triumphant.

"8 o'clock, then?"

"Sharp and pointy," I agreed. Nick stood and kissed the top of my head. I felt a blush start at my neck and work its way upwards as I wondered if anyone had seen Nick's PDA. Well, it wasn't like half the lab didn't know we were together now, was it?

_Together_. Yeah, I liked that word.

"See you at eight, rookie," Nick said as he made his way towards the door. I threw a pen at him, and he turned and gave me a hurt look as it bounced off the back of his head. I laughed and waved at him, and with a final flash of that damn grin, he was gone.

Despite the fact I'd almost been killed, things were looking up in the land of Sadie.


	13. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

It was a beautiful dress.

It shimmered like starlight, the cheap cubic zirconias glinting from the neat arrangement woven into the delicate silver fabric. It flowed to my knees, cut so that layers of fabric overlapped each other like leaves around my legs.

I was having some trouble with the zipper owing to my bandaged hand. It turned out I'd dislocated two fingers; funny, it hadn't felt like it at the time.

I looked in the mirror. Yeah. I looked good for someone who had been almost killed.

It was Wednesday night and here I was, trying to salvage my appearance. I'd done okay, I thought. If anything, the dress was what would catch Nick's attention. He'd said to dress to the nines, so I'd pulled out all the stops. The dress had a low-cut V-neck, fake diamonds – matching those woven into a pattern on the dress – rested on my collarbone. Basically the only real diamonds I was wearing were the studs in my ears, 1-carat, a gift from my mother last Christmas.

Fed up with looking at my miserable self, I turned away from the mirror. Fido was sitting on the floor, looking at me.

"Do I look okay?" I said, doing a little twirl. The dress fanned out around me and settled as I came to a stop. Fido walked away contemptuously. "That bad, huh?" I sighed.

There was a knock on the door. "This is it!" I squealed half-heartedly into the empty air, grabbing my clutch purse from the table. I hurried out of my room, struggling a bit. It had been a while since I had worn three-inch heels, being rather fond of sneakers myself.

I opened the door and there stood Nick Stokes. He wore a blue dress shirt, black dress pants, and shoes so shiny I could see my reflection in them. He held one arm behind his back. I smiled nervously at him, just hoping my lip wouldn't split open and gush blood everywhere.

He gaped at me. I frowned. "What? It's the hair, isn't it," I said miserably, patting it. "It went all curly even when I tried to straighten it so I figured-"

"No," said Nick. "It's not the hair. The hair looks great." He gave me an extremely slow once-over, gaze lingering below my collarbone. I grinned. "You look great. Really great."

I resisted the urge to do a little dance. "So do you," I said. Nick smiled. He brought his arm out from behind his back. When his hand came into sight, it was holding a bunch of roses. Two yellow, two white, and two red.

"I didn't know what your favourite flower was," he explained. "So I decided to go with roses. But I didn't know what colour of rose you liked, so I got two of each."

"I'm allergic to flowers, Nick," I said. Nick's face fell. I couldn't help but laugh. "I'm kidding! They're beautiful." I took the roses from him and retreated back into the house, heading to the kitchen. Nick followed after me.

I was, for once, happy to let him traipse around in my now-clean abode. He made an impressed noise at the clean state of the kitchen as I found a vase, filled it with water and arranged the roses carefully on the counter.

"So, shall we go?" I said to Nick, walking around the counter to join him standing there. He offered a crooked arm to me and I smiled, sliding my arm through his.

"Sure, cupcake," he crooned. I laughed at his exaggerated Texan drawl.

Nick Stokes grinned his familiar, good old shit-eating grin, looking down at me.

"Let's go."

* * *

**A/N**: Well, as Sadie said earlier, it's over! For her and Nick, though, it's just the beginning. I'm not ruling out the chance of a sequel. Anything's possible, right? 

I hope you all enjoyed reading it – even if Sadie is an annoying character. P I had fun writing it, at least.

Many thanks to all my reviewers. became my best friend while I was writing this. So, thanks! 

And lastly, I'd like to thank the Academy for this prestigious honour; my Mum for always standing by me, and the directors and fellow actors of this movie who—

Oops. Wrong speech. :D

Keep on ficcing, people. And don't forget about world peace, Nick Stokes with no shirt on, and other extremely important things I can't remember right now.

-runs away-


End file.
